THE  STAGE  LIFE 
of  MRS.  STIRLING: 

WITH  SOME  SKETCHES 
OF  THE  NINETEENTH 
CENTURY  THEATRE 


MRS.   STIRLING   AND   MISS   MARY   ANDERSON   IN   "ROMEO   AND   JULIET. 


[Photo:  bo.vney  &  Co. 
Frontispiece. 


THE  STAGE  LIFE  OF 
MRS.  STIRLING:  WITH 

SOME  SKETCHES  OF  THE  NINE- 
TEENTH CENTURY  THEATRE.  By 
PERCY  ALLEN.  With  an  Introduction 

by  SIR    FRANK    R.    BENSON 


E.    P.    DUTTON    AND    COMPANY 

68 1     FIFTH     AVENUE,     NEW      YORK 


(All  rights  reserved) 

PRINTED  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN 


TO 

SIR   FRANK   R.    BENSON 

IN  RESPECTFUL    APPRECIATION   OF  WORK   WELL 

DONE,   FOR  MRS.   STIRLING'S  FRIEND, 

AND   HIS-SHAKESPEARE 


846160 


INTRODUCTION 

WHEN  I  first  saw  Mrs.  Stirling  act,  the  theatre  and  the 
footlights  disappeared.  One  seemed  to  be  looking  at  in- 
cidents in  the  life  of  one's  fellow  men  and  women,  to  be 
overhearing  their  conversation,  watching  their  struggles, 
their  joys  and  sorrows,  their  hopes  and  fears,  witnessing 
the  evolution  of  their  inmost  soul  and  being,  whether  in  the 
person  of  a  great  lady  or  a  faithful  retainer.  The  rest 
of  the  audience  shared  this  feeling ;  all  round  one  heard  : 
"  That's  just  what  I  should  have  said,  or  thought,  or  done." 
One  touch  of  nature  makes  the  whole  world  kin. 

I  did  not  know  then  that  I  should  shortly  have  the 
pleasure  of  acting  with  her  at  the  Lyceum  in  Sir  Henry 
Irving's  production  of  "Romeo  and  Juliet."  When  that 
day  came,  my  first  professional  engagement  as  Paris,  I  met 
the  Capulets'  nurse  on  the  stage,  and  again  I  felt  the  same 
sensation  of  enlarged  life  which  I  had  experienced  when 
one  of  a  delighted  audience.  I  was  not  in  the  company  of 
Mrs.  Stirling,  but  of  a  mediaeval  Italian  nurse,  so  mediseval, 
so  Italian,  that  she  belonged  to  all  time  and  to  all  nations, 
in  the  midst  of  the  people,  the  environment,  the  period  of 
the  character  she  was  representing  in  the  spacious  days  of 
long  ago  at  Verona,  in  a  place  where  the  ever  young  heart 
of  the  gray  old  world  beat  rhythmically,  where  life  was 
full  of  sunshine  and  showers,  of  laughter  and  tears.  This 
quickening  influence  produced  in  this  instance  by  an  artist 
of  three  score  years  and  ten  is  surely  a  mark  of  the  highest 
excellence  and  dramatic  and  artistic  work.  On  whatever 
stage,  in  whatever  age  the  scene  was  set,  the  same  might 
be  said  of  her. 


8         THE   STAGE  LIFE   OF  MRS.   STIRLING 

To  a  greater  or  less  extent  this  vitality  seemed  to  me  more 
frequent  in  the  school  of  acting  to  which  Mrs.  Stirling- 
belonged — including  under  this  heading  the  Terrys, 
Kendals,  Bancrofts,  Sir  John  Hare,  Sir  Charles  Wyndham, 
Dame  Genevi£ve  Ward,  J.  D.  Beveridge  and  the  like — than 
among  the  younger  artists.  Not  so  noticeable,  perhaps, 
in  plays  dealing  with  modern  subjects,  here  we  seem  to 
have  more  than  maintained  the  standard  of  British  acting, 
as  in  romantic,  poetic,  and  classical  drama.  Their  methods 
were  founded,  not  on  a  desire  merely  to  exploit  their  own 
narrowing  interest,  eccentric  personality,  or  self-conscious 
temperament  round  which  the  popular  author  of  the  day 
might  be  tempted  to  write  an  individual  character  sketch, 
but  rather  to  enlarge  their  technique,  sympathy,  and  under- 
standing, so  as  to  gain  a  capacity  to  represent  as  many 
human  souls  and  bodies  as  a  Garrick,  a  Talma,  or  a  Robson. 
Charles  Glennie  in  "  Three  Wise  Fools  "  is  a  recent  illustration 
of  this  sympathetic  versatility,  equally  at  home  in  romantic, 
melodrama,  or  domestic  comedy.  It  was  this  which  gave  such 
poetry  to  that  wonderful  old  nurse  in  the  garden  scene  with 
Ellen  Terry  as  "  Juliet."  I  remember  my  own  old  nurse, 
after  seeing  the  play,  trotting  round  to  all  her  acquaintances, 
asking  everyone,  "  Did  you  see  me  on  the  stage  at  the  Lyceum  ? 
Oh,  I  did  laugh  when  I  saw  myself  there  with  Miss  Ellen 
Terry  and  Mr.  Irving  all  so  fine."  In  leisure  moments 
44  Nursie  "  was  kind  enough  to  favour  me  with  many  an 
interesting  reminiscence  and  useful  hint  on  stagecraft. 
From  that  day  to  this  I  carry  recollections  of  wise  saws 
and  sayings  uttered  by  her,  by  Phelps,  Miss  Terry, 
Irving,  J.  B.  Howe,  Fernandez,  Haviland,  Tom  Meade,  and 
many  another.  Thus  Phelps'  t4  Self-advertisement  tends 
to  kill  an  actor's  chief  asset,  artistic  sensibility."  Mrs. 
Stirling  in  a  duet  with  Irving  :  44  In  twenty-five  years  there 
will  be  no  poetic  or  romantic  drama,  there  will  be  no  actors 
sufficiently  trained  to  present  it.  Go  and  work  as  we  did, 
six  new  parts  a  week  sometimes  ;  learn  to  get  through  your 
performance  thoroughly  and  perfectly,  taking  infinite  pains 
whether  the  audience  be  large  or  small,  whether  they  or 
your  fellow  actors  are  drunk  or  sober;  what  though  there  is 
a  hole  in  the  roof  through  which  the  rain  pours  down  on 


INTRODUCTION  9 

you,  and  the  rats  have  eaten  your  favourite  grease  paint, 
and  the  manager  bolted  with  the  takings.  When  you 
learn  to  do  this  you  may,  with  luck,  begin  to  consider  your- 
self an  actor."  For  these  artists  and  their  fellows  the  Stock 
Company  was  the  school,  the  older  actors  the  teachers  for 
all  who  wished  to  learn,  and  an  audience  of  habitual  theatre- 
goers and  keen  students  of  dramatic  literature  were  the 
examiners.  At  the  time  I  did  not  understand  the  meaning 
of  all  they  said,  but  the  longer  I  act,  the  truer  do  I  feel  was 
their  practical  theory  of  art  work.  They  did  not  call  it 
Art  with  a  big  high-browed  A,  they  often  called  it  "  Bread 
and  Butter."  Many  pretended  to  prefer  keeping  a  beerhouse 
or  a  greengrocer's  shop,  but  they  suffered  and  endured,  they 
worked  through  sleepless  nights  and  hungry  days  in  order 
to  become  artists.  They  denied  themselves  little  luxuries 
to  buy  a  sword,  a  buckle,  or  a  little  brooch — humble  offerings 
on  the  shrine  of  drama.  In  doing  these  things  they  acquired 
vision  and  understanding,  a  generous  human  sympathy, 
and  that  large-hearted  charity  which  ever  comes  from 
selfless  service.  All  this  will  become  clear  to  those  who 
follow  the  story  of  "  Nursies  "  life-work  in  the  pages  of  this 
biography.  Readers  will  get  a  glimpse  of  all  the  triumph 
and  all  the  disappointment  that  went  to  the  making  of 
her,  who  was  the  fairy  godmother  not  only  of  her  profession, 
but  of  all  who  came  into  the  sphere  of  her  influence.  They 
will  appreciate  how  that,  though  the  well-graced  actors 
have  their  hour  upon  the  stage,  and  then  are  seen  no  more, 
their  work  lives  on  after  them ;  and  what  is  good  in  their 
achievement  lasts  for  ever,  in  other  hands  and  generally  under 
other  names.  That  does  not  matter.  The  artist's  joy  is 
giving.  Happy  are  they  whose  gifts  are  as  great  as  Mrs. 
Stirling's.  Readers  will  learn  how  to  her  and  a  few  others 
it  is  granted  to  have  certain  parts,  certain  gestures,  certain 
stage  business,  certain  large  ideas  always  associated  with 
their  names.  What  nobler  epitaph  could  stage- worker 
have  ? 

Towards  the  end  of  her  days  "  Nursie  "  was  kind  enough 
to  send  my  wife  some  daintily  worked  artificial  flowers 
and  stage  embroidery  used  by  her  in  some  of  her  early  im- 
personations, with  kindly  encouraging  messages  of  inspiration 


10       THE   STAGE  LIFE   OF  MRS.   STIRLING 

and  approval ;  and  now  I  am  grateful  that  it  falls  to  me 
to  add  my  humble  laurel  leaf  to  the  crown  that  has  been 
interwoven  by  the  author  in  the  following  pages,  for  one  who 
was  all  her  days  Good  friend  of  the  world's  children. 


AUTHOR'S    PREFACE 

WHEN,  some  years  ago,  I  first  decided  to  write  an  article 
upon  the  stage- work  of  Mrs.  Stirling,  I  had  neither  the  desire 
nor  the  intention  to  make  a  book.  An  essay  of  some  four 
thousand  words  was  all  I  had  in  mind  ;  but  directly  I  began 
to  dig  a  little  into  the  actress's  record,  I  found  her  personality 
and  her  art  looming  so  large  in  the  history  of  the  nineteenth 
century  theatre,  that  the  things  I  wished  to  record — and  that 
seemed  to  me  worth  recording — multiplied  speedily  into 
a  formidable  pile  of  manuscripts,  containing  information  that 
had  never  before  appeared  in  connected  form,  but  lay  scattered, 
at  random,  throughout  the  newspapers,  magazines,  stage- 
biographies,  and  living  memories  of  the  last  three-quarters 
of  a  century.  Excepting  Joseph  Knight's  article,  in  The 
Dictionary  of  National  Biography — clever  and  just,  though 
too  brief,  and  by  no  means  accurate — there  exists,  so  far 
as  I  am  aware,  no  considerable  account  of  this  life,  that 
links  up  the  stage  of  Siddons,  the  Kembles,  and  the  Keans 
with  that  of  the  Irvings,  Miss  Ellen  Terry,  and  the 
Bancrofts. 

My  project  was  approved  by  friends  to  whom  I  spoke 
of  it.  A  well-known  actor  answered  :  "  One  thing  only 
surprises  me — that  no  one  has  done  it  before."  I  determined, 
therefore,  to  do  that  which  no  man,  in  these  days,  should 
do  lightly — namely,  to  add  one  book  more  to  the  countless 
tides  of  volumes  that  break  yearly  upon  the  big  world's 
shore. 

Whether  my  grandmother  would  have  approved  of  this 
volume,  I  do  not  know.  Mrs.  Stirling  was  an  actress  who 
lived  much  for  her  art,  and  neither  desired,  nor  sought, 
publicity  for  its  own  sake.  That  fact  I  have  wished  to 
remember  in  writing  this  volume.  It  has  been  my  wish  to 
write  sympathetically — barren  indeed  is  the  biography 


12       THE    STAGE  LIFE   OF  MRS.   STIRLING 

void  of  feeling  or  enthusiasm — but  also  to  set  down  all 
faithfully,  without  sentiment  or  bias,  whether  in  gauging 
the  individual  woman,  or  in  estimating  her  quality  as  an 
actress. 

The  chief  drawback  to  the  subject's  interest  must  lie 
in  the  comparatively  barren  dramatic  period  during  which 
Mrs.  Stirling  was  fated  to  live  the  most  active  years  of  her 
stage-life.  Those  years  produced  many  great  actors  and 
actresses — artists  of  consummate  skill — but  of  great  plays 
they  produced  almost  none  ;  and  if  I  have  been  compelled 
to  raise  again  from  dusty  death  so  many  dramas  that,  on 
their  merits  might  well  have  lain  forgotten  where  they  were, 
I  did  so  only  that  there  might  shine  through  them  Mrs. 
Stirling's  personality  and  art,  and  with  her,  here  and  there, 
a  glimpse  of  some  of  those  equally  great  contemporary 
figures,  who  were  her  stage  companions,  and  her  friends.  I 
have  sought  to  show  these  actors  and  actresses  carrying 
on  and  handing  down  the  torch  of  a  fecund  and  living 
tradition,  through  somewhat  arid  and  barren  decades  ;  and 
to  show  also  how,  little  by  little,  at  last,  from  the  Wigans, 
through  the  Bancrofts,  our  drama  began  again  to  be  truthful, 
natural,  and  free.  Should  this  book — besides  adding  some- 
thing to  somebody's  knowledge  of  the  nineteenth-century 
stage — also  encourage  in  some  younger  members  of  the 
theatrical  profession  perseverance,  and  determination  to 
succeed,  in  spite  of  discouragements,  I  shall  be  the  more 
rewarded  for  my  pains. 

One  other  thought  was  present  with  me  while  writing. 
This  tale  tells,  indirectly,  of  an  alienation  which  affected 
the  course  of  many  lives — that  of  the  writer  among  them. 
Incomprehensible,  as  yet,  to  our  limited  understandings, 
are  the  seeming  chances  of  life  ;  and  within  the  word  destiny 
— after  all  no  more  than  a  word,  as  M.  Maeterlinck  knows 
— we  include  facts  inscrutable,  and  "thoughts  beyond  the 
reaches  of  our  souls."  With  this  book,  then,  there  is  linked 
in  my  mind  the  idea  of  reconciliation.  But,  apart  from  all 
such  considerations,  the  preparation  of  this  story  has  been 
of  absorbing  interest,  and  of  great  delight  to  an  individual, 
part  of  whose  duty  it  is  to  write  and  speak  upon  subjects 
connected  with  the  stage. 


AUTHOR'S   PREFACE  18 

I  have  to  thank  many  actors  and  actresses  very  warmly, 
for  assistance  rendered,  and  for  information  most  willingly 
and  kindly  supplied.  The  names  of  Miss  Ellen  Terry — who 
supplied  me  from  her  memory,  as  well  as  from  her  book — 
Mrs.  Kendal,  and  Dame  Genevieve  Ward,  come  at  once 
to  mind  ;  and  also  Mrs.  Gabrielle  Enthoven  for  giving  me 
access  to  her  valuable  collection  of  play-bills,  illustrations, 
and  theatrical  lore.  Among  others,  I  have  also  to  thank 
Sir  Squire  Bancroft  for  facts,  for  permission  to  quote  from 
the  Memoirs,  Mr.  Ben  Webster  and  Dame  May  Whitty, 
especially  Sir  Frank  Benson,  for  information,  for  valuable 
advice,  and  also  for  writing  the  delightful  little  sketch  that 
forms  the  introduction  to  this  volume.  Nor  must  I  forget 
Sir  Arthur  Pinero,  nor  Mr.  Fred  Grove — for  kindly  indicating 
many  fruitful  sources  of  knowledge — nor  Mrs.  Stirling's  old 
friend,  Mr.  Ben  Greet,  who  was  always  ready  to  answer 
questions. 

Among  those  who  supplied  me  with  letters,  as  well  as 
information,  I  am  particularly  grateful  to  Mme.  de  Navarro 
(Miss  Mary  Anderson),  who  also  was  my  grandmother's 
close  friend — as  readers  of  the  following  pages  will  discover — 
and  also  to  Mr.  Newton  Baylis,  and  Miss  Lilian  Baylis,  of 
the  "  Old  Vic,"  who  lent  me  valuable  and  hitherto  un- 
published correspondence  between  Mrs.  Baylis,  Mrs.  Stirling, 
and  Charles  Reade,  who  were  a  trio  of  close  friends.  My 
mother's  recollections  are  not  now  very  distinct,  but  she 
has  most  kindly  told  me  what  she  could. 

To  the  following  publishing  houses  I  make  grateful 
acknowledgement : 

To  Monsieur  Henry  Davray,  and  Mr.  J.  Lewis  May, 
for  permission  to  make  use  of  material  in  an  article  in  the 
Anglo-French  Review  (July  1920)  on  Mrs.  Stirling,  Rachel, 
and  Charles  Reade ;  to  Messrs.  Hutchinson,  for  permission 
to  quote  from  Miss  Ellen  Terry's  Autobiography  ;  to  Messrs. 
John  Murray,  for  the  same  courtesy  in  respect  to  the  Bancroft 
Memoirs  ;  and  to  the  House  that  owns  the  copyright  of 
Coleman's  Life  of  Charles  Reade.  Many  other  names  might 
be  added  ;  but  their  owners  will  pardon  my  brevity,  and 
accept  a  general  acknowledgment. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

INTRODUCTION  BY  SIR  FRANK  R.  BENSON         .            .      7 
AUTHOR'S  PREFACE 11 

CHAPTER 

I.  1813-32  EARLY  YEARS  .  .  10 

II.  1832-37  PROVINCES,  AND  THE  ADELPHI  .  34 

III.  1837-38  NEW  STRAND  AND  ST.  JAMES'S   .  .  43 

IV.  1839-40  LYCEUM,  DRURY  LANE,  AND  OLYMPIC  .  54 
V.  1840-41  WITH  MACREADY  AT  THE  HAYMARKET  63 

VI.  1842-43    DRURY  LANE  AND  THE  STRAND  .    72 

VII.  1844-47    AT  THE  PRINCESS'S   .            .            .  .83 

VIII.  1847-49    LYCEUM  AND  OLYMPIC         .            .  .97 

IX.  1849          "ADRIENNE  LECOUVREUR "           .  .  106 

X.  1849-51    STRAND,  OLYMPIC,  AND  HAYMARKET  .  116 

XI.  1851          CHARLES    READE,    AND    "THE   LADIES' 

BATTLE" 128 

XII.  1852-53    "PEG  WOFFINGTON  "  .  .  .139 

XIII.  1853-61    WITH  ROBSON  AT  THE  OLYMPIC  .  156 

XIV.  1861-68    THE  ADELPHI,  AND  SOME  SPEECHES    .  172 

XV.  1868-78    CONDITION      OF       ENGLISH     THEATRE 

IN  1868  .  .  .  .  .187 

XVI.  1879-82    "THE  NURSE"  IN  "ROMEO"          .  .  193 

XVII.  1883-95    LAST  APPEARANCES,  RETIREMENT  AND 

DEATH  .  .  .  .  .210 

XVIII.  CONCLUSION      .  .  .  .  .224 

APPENDIX 233 

INDEX  .  241 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

MRS.  STIRLING  AND  MISS  MARY  ANDERSON  IN  "ROMEO 

AND  JULIET"  ....  Frontispiece 

FACING  PAGE 

MRS.  STIRLING,  ABOUT  1840 68 

From  an  Engraving  by  R.  LANB,  E.A. 

MRS.  STIRLING,  ABOUT  1850      .  .  .  .  .120 

MRS.    STIRLING    AS    "PEG    WOFFINGTON,"    AND    BEN 

WEBSTER  AS  "TRIPLET,"  IN  "MASKS  AND  FACES"  144 

MRS.  STIRLING  AS  "  PEG  WOFFINGTON "      .  .  .  146 

From  the  Painting  by  H.  WYNDHAM  PHILLIPS,  in  the  Garrick  Club. 

MRS  STIRLING'S  FATHER,  CAPTAIN  HEHL.  .  .  160 

MRS.  STIRLING,  ABOUT  1856        '  .  .  .  .160 

MRS.  STIRLING 180 

From  the  Painting  by  WALTER  GOODMAN,  In  the  Garrick  Club, 

BEN  WEBSTER,  IN  A  COSTUME  PLAY  .  .  .206 

MRS.    STIRLING    AS    THE    NURSE    IN    "ROMEO    AND 

JULIET"  .  206 


MBS.  STIRLING. 
A  reverend  Lady." 
Comedy  of  Errors,  Act,  v.,  Sc.  1 


The  Stage  Life  of  Mrs.  Stirling 


CHAPTER    I 

EARLY    YEARS 

1813-32 

Birth  and  family — Stage  personalities  of  her  time — Early  education — An 
impoverished  family — Goes  on  the  stage,  as  "  Fanny  Clifton " — 
The  City  Pantheon — First  engagement  probably  at  the  East  London — 
London  of  the  thirties — Condition  of  the  theatre — Monopoly  of  the 
patent  houses — Efforts  of  the  minor  theatres  to  end  it — Bulwer  and 
Macready  assist — Davidge  at  the  Coburg  (Old  Vic) — "  Oliver  Twist " 
as  played  there — Rough  audiences — Fanny  Clifton  goes  to  the 
Pavilion — Experiences  there,  in  melodrama  and  spectacle — "  Cherry 
and  Fair  Star "  and  "  The  Wreck  Ashore " — Meets  Edward 
Stirling — Her  crudity,  and  his — Marries  him — Leaves  the  Pavilion. 

MARY  ANNE  HEHL,  to  whose  stage  career  these  pages  are 
mainly  given,  was  the  daughter  of  Captain  Hehl l — a  German, 
in  all  probability — whose  forerunners  in  England  had  come 
over,  my  father  thinks,  with  one  of  the  Georges.2  Be  that 
as  it  may,  the  family,  I  suppose,  was  by  that  time  completely 
anglicized,  since  we  hear  nothing  of  German  connections.3 
Captain  Hehl  himself  was,  in  middle  life,  a  portly  gentleman 
of  aristocratic,  and  somewhat  haughty,  demeanour,  capable 
of  wearing  with  aggressive  dignity  the  beaver  hat,  and  long 
closely  buttoned  coat  of  the  period,  if  one  may  judge  by 
the  portrait,  in  silhouette,  that  hangs  to-day  in  my  father's 
dining-room,  and  is  endorsed  on  the  back  :  "  Simon  Hehl, 
3rd  Captain  Regiment  of  Foot  Guards,  London.  Assistant 

1  Not  Kehl,  as  in  the  Dictionary  of  National  Biography. 

2  We  may  dismiss  the  statement  in  Actors  by  Daylight,  March  24,  1838, 
that  Captain  Hehl  descended  from  the  celebrated  judge,  of  the  seventeenth 
century,  Sir  Matthew  Hale. 

3  Mr.  Newton  Baylis — father  of  Miss  Lilian  Baylis,  now  controlling  the 
"  Old  Vic  " — whose  'mother  was  one  of  Mrs.  Stirling's  intimates,  believet 
that  the  actress  had  Irish  blood  in  her. 

19 


20       THE   STAGE  LIFE   OF   MRS.   STIRLING 

Quarter-Master-General  Horse  Guards,  London.1    Was  made 
a  Freeman  of  Dumfries,  1815." 

For  what  service,  if  any,  that  compliment  was  paid 
to  him,  in  the  year  of  Waterloo,  I  do  not  know.  His  name 
is  not  included  in  the  Index  of  the  Burgesses  of  Dumfries  for 
that  year ;  though  we  need  not  therefore  suppose  that 
the  statement  upon  the  portrait  was  incorrect,  it  not  being 
the  custom  to  record  upon  the  list  of  Freemen  the  names 
of  honorary  burgesses — among  whom  it  is  probable  that 
Captain  HehPs  name  was.  The  grant  was  made  as  a  passing 
compliment,  and  no  more  was  expected  to  be  heard  of  its 
recipients.2 

Captain  Hehl  had  three  children — Charles,  who  became 
a  bank  clerk  at  Liverpool — Agnes,  who  played  a  considerable 
part — though  off  this  rough  world's  stage — as  Lady  Superior 
in  a  convent  at  Bruges  ;  and  Mary  Anne,  who  was  to  be  one 
of  the  leading  actresses  of  her  century. 

The  girl  was  born  on  July  29,  1813,8  in  Queen  Street, 
Mayfair,  London,  and  was  educated  at  the  Catholic  Seminary, 
Brook  Green  House,  Hammersmith,  and  later,  it  seems,  at  a 
convent  in  France,  or  at  Bruges,  whence  she  returned,  to 
find  a  most  unhappy  home.4  Her  father  had  ruined  his 
family,  and  sold  his  commission.  All  the  discomforts  of 
poverty  awaited  her  arrival,  and  Mary  Anne  was  compelled 
to  earn  her  own  living,  as  best  she  might.  Out  of  that 
seeming  evil  came  good,  for,  following  a  true  instinct,  the 
girl  chose  the  stage,  and  it  was  to  her  father's  improvidence, 
therefore,  that  the  daughter  owed  a  long  early  training 
which,  aided  by  her  natural  energy,  good  looks,  and  talents, 
were  to  bring  her  a  great  measure  of  success. 

But  before  we  follow  her  further,  let  us  glance,  for  a 
moment,  at  the  nineteenth- century  stage.  At  the  time  of 
Mary  Anne's  arrival  in  this  world,  some  of  the  drama's 

1  See  the  portrait  facing  p.  160. 

8  Information  supplied  by  Mr.  R.  A.  Grierson,  Town  Clerk  of  Dumfries, 
who  has  kindly  searched  the  records. 

*  Most  of  the  records  give  1815  or  1818.     The  correct  date  is  from  the 
tombstone  in  Brompton  Cemetery. 

*  Tallies  Dramatic  Magazine,    1851.     Joseph  Knight  in  Dictionary  of 
National  Biography  states  that  Captain  Hehl   was    at  one  time  Military 
Secretary  to  the  War  Office.     It  may  be  true,  but  his  statements  concerning 
these  years  are  quite  unreliable. 


EARLY  YEARS  21 

great  names  were  still  in  men's  mouths.  That  austere 
figure,  and  great  actor,  John  Philip  Kemble — "  Black 
Jack,"  or  "  Solemn  John,"  as  he  was  known  to  his  con- 
temporaries— was  still  treading  the  stage,  from  which  he 
was  about  to  withdraw,1  and  "  of  which  he  had  been  for  thirty- 
six  years  the  ornament."  His  sister,  the  incomparable 
Siddons,  was  already  in  retirement,  having  made  her  farewell 
bow  to  the  public,  at  Drury  Lane,  on  June  29,  1812. 

Edmund  Kean,  however — that  genius  whose  natural 
acting,  two  years  before,2  had  put  a  term  to  the  declamatory 
style  of  the  Kemble s — was  now  upon  the  upward  course 
of  his  meteoric  career,8  having  given  to  London  audiences 
two  of  the  greatest  tragic  efforts  the  world  has  ever  witnessed 
— "  Shakespeare  by  flashes  of  lightning,"  *  in  his  "  Othello," 
and,  in  "  Sir  Giles  Overreach,"  the  most  terrific  outburst 
of  human  passion  ever  witnessed  upon  the  English  stage. 

In  that  same  year,  1816,  the  tragedian  who  was  to  succeed 
Kean,  as  the  representative  of  our  theatre,  in  its  national 
and  poetic  aspects,  William  C.  Macready,  had  come  to  London, 
at  the  age  of  twenty-three,  and  was  to  achieve  his  first 
great  success,  as  "Richard  III,"  at  Covent  Garden,  on 
October  25,  1819. 

Of  the  two  leading  comediennes,  whom  the  future  Mrs. 
Stirling  was  to  succeed,  the  elder,  Dora  Jordan,  discarded 
by  the  Duke  of  Clarence,6  had  just  come  to  a  tragic  end, 
dying  in  France,  poor  and  neglected;  while  Mrs.  Glover, 
"  the  soul  of  humour,"  then  in  her  thirty-sixth  year,  was 
at  the  height  of  her  fame  and  popularity. 

Of  the  British  stage,  in  general,  at  that  time,  we  may 
say,  with  truth,  that  its  sky  was  both  sunlit  and  overcast. 
Kean's  career,  though  brilliant  as  the  lightning,  was  to  be 
almost  as  brief;  and  with  his  passing,  in  1888,  English  drama 
went  rapidly  from  bad  to  worse,  until  1887,  when  Macready, 
driven — by  the  spectacular  and  other  mismanagements  of 
Bunn,  and  his  kind — unwillingly  to  take  up  the  reins  for 

1  The  farewell  dinner  to  him  was  June  27,  1817. 

8  His  debut,  at  Drury  Lane,  in  "  Shylock,"  was  January  26,   1814. 

3  The  cup  presented  to  him  by  the  Drury  Lane  company,  Lord  Byron 
and  others,  in  memory  of  his  first  representation  of  "  Sir  Giles  Overreach  " 
(January  12,  1816),  was  dated  June  25,  1816. 

*  Coleridge's  phrase,  or  Hazlitt's. 

5  Afterwards  King  William  IV. 


22      THE  STAGE  LIFE  OF  MRS.   STIRLING 

himself,    effected    some   temporary,    but    only   temporary, 
improvement. 

If,  during  this  first  quarter  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
there  were  yet  some  great  actors  upon  our  stage — of  great 
dramatists  there  were  none.  Neither  Garrick,  Kemble,  nor 
Kean  were  the  means  of  adding,  during  their  management, 
any  plays  of  permanent  value  to  our  stage.  For  half  a 
century  past,  indeed — excepting  principally  the  comedies 
of  Sheridan  and  Goldsmith — nothing,  almost,  had  come 
to  stay.  Outside  the  classics,  our  national  drama,  divorced 
from  literature,  and  from  the  great  literary  movements 
of  the  century,  was  mainly  futile,  bombastic,  artificial ;  and 
was  destined  so  to  remain  for  yet  another  half-century. 
Among  the  misfortunes  of  the  lady  to  whose  stage  career 
these  pages  are  given,  not  the  least  was  this — that  she  was 
born,  and  must  live,  in  so  barren  a  time,  and  be  compelled 
so  frequently  to  give  from  her  own  abundance,  "  heightening 
touches  to  characters  but  coldly  written."  l  Happily  for 
her,  upon  no  actress  of  her  century,  I  suppose,  could  that 
mischance  have  fallen  more  lightly,  since  upon  her  had  been 
bestowed  talents  so  varied,  and  a  personality  so  marked,  as 
to  enable  her,  many  a  time  and  oft,  to  overcome  an  author's 
deficiencies,  and  to  fashion  for  herself,  out  of  such  airy 
nothings,  "  a  local  habitation  and  a  name." 

Accounts  of  Mrs.  Stirling's  theatrical  beginnings  are 
strangely  confused  and  contradictory ;  nor  am  I  able 
altogether  to  reconcile  them.  West,  according  to  Russell's 
Representative  Actors,2  states,  upon  what  authority  I  know 
not,  that  Mary  Anne's  first  appearance  was  in  the  Ballet 
at  the  Surrey,3  as  early  as  1827,  when  she  was  a  child  of 
fourteen.  This,  though  I  cannot  refute  it,  I  disbelieve. 

Joseph  Knight — obtaining  the  information  probably 
from  the  Era  Almanac — asserts  that  she  began  at  the  Coburg  ; 
and  he  may  be  right,  though  no  old  play-bills  of  that  house 
— that  I  have  come  across — mention  Fanny  Clifton's  name, 
as  naturally  they  would  not,  if  her  parts  were  insignificant. 
Neither  Miss  Lilian  Baylis  nor  her  father  is  aware  of  any 
tradition  concerning  Fanny  Clifton  at  their  house.  According 

1  Colley  Gibber's  Apology.  2  P.  407  note. 

*  I  cannot  trace  her  in  Surrey  play- bills  of  the  period. 


EARLY   YEARS  23 

to  Knight,  her  work  at  the  Coburg  consisted  principally  of 
carrying  messages,  and  the  like,  her  first  part  of  importance 
being  "  Amelia  Wilderheim  "  in  "  Lovers'  Vows,"  adapted 
from  Kotzebue. 

Mr.  Barton  Baker,  in  his  History  of  the  London  Stage,  and 
its  players,  1576-1903,  differs  from  Mr.  Knight.  He  states l 
— though  without  naming  his  authority — that  she  began 
at  the  Grub  Street2  Theatre,  a  disused  chapel,  that  had 
been  converted,  about  1828,3  to  the  cult  of  the  Muses,  and 
was  later  named  the  "  City  Theatre "  and  afterwards 
"The  City  Pantheon." 

It  was  here,  according  to  this  chronicler,  that  "  she 
made  her  first  appearance  upon  the  stage  in  the  humblest 
walk  of  the  drama,  delivering  messages,  and  speaking  a  few 
lines." 

Did  she  ?  Again  I  do  not  know ;  but  going  through 
the  play-bills  of  the  Grub  Street  Theatre,4  I  find  the 
following : 

THE   CITY  PANTHEON  or  School  of  practical  Instruction 

for 

Elocution,  Music,  and  the  Drama 
late    the    City    Chapel,    Chapel    Street,    Fore    Street,    Cripplegate 

'  Delectando  pariterque  Monendo  ' 
4  Learning's  Triumph  o'er  her  barbarous  foes 
First  rear'd  the  stage.'    Doctor  Johnson. 

The  second  periodical  Exemplification  will  take  place 
on  Monday,  the  3rd  of  August,  1829, 
when  the  tragedy  of  DOUGLAS 

with  new  Dioramic  Illustration,  by  Mr.  Bedford,  and  other  appropriate 

accompaniments,  will  be  recited  by  the  Professors,  Subscribers  and 

Students,  etc.  etc. 

The  City  Pantheon  is  intended  to  comprise  a  systematic  course 
of  Tuition  in  Elocution,  Action,  Dramatic  Reading,  Vocal  Music, 

1  P.  404. 

8  Now  Milton  St.  Fore  Street,  immortalized  in  chronicles  of  the  eighteenth 
century  as  the  abode  of  the  literary  hack.  Edmund  Kean  played  Shake- 
spearean  parts  there  in  May  and  June  1831,  including  "  Othello."  Elton, 
Buckatone,  Vining,  Ellen  Tree  (Mrs.  Charles  Kean),  and  other  stars  played 
there  under  Chapman's  management.  It  was  destroyed  1836. 

8  Mr.  Baker  puts  the  conversion  1830.     This  is  wrong. 

4  Mrs.  Charles  Enthoven's  collection. 


24       THE   STAGE  LIFE   OF  MRS.   STIRLING 

Dancing,  Fencing,  etc. ;  and  to  afford  students  and  Amateurs 
frequent  opportunities  of  respectable  practice  ;  and  to  foster 
and  develop  talents  which,  without  such  advantages,  might  be 
entirely  lost  to  their  possessors  and  the  public. 

Now  this  school  of  acting,  eminently  respectable — "  none 
admitted  to  the  best  tier  unless  suitably  dressed,"  and  so 
forth — was  just  the  sort  of  place  to  which  a  young  lady, 
with  stage-ward  aspirations,  might  go,  to  learn  the  rudiments 
of  her  chosen  profession,  especially  at  a  time  when  her  choice 
of  such  Institutions  was  strictly  limited.  It  is,  therefore, 
not  impossible  that  Miss  Fanny  Clifton  should  have  here 
begun,  though  it  is  also  possible  that  a  confusion  of  names 
may  have  arisen  between  her  and  Miss  Fanny  Ay  ton,  a  singer 
"  of  Italian  style,"  who  was  there  in  October  1881,  only 
three  months  before  the  other  Fanny  went,  as  we  shall  see, 
to  the  Pavilion  in  the  Whitechapel  Road. 

Here  then  I  should  have  been  content  to  leave  Mr. 
Baker's  choice  of  Grub  Street,  as  the  most  probable,  did 
other  statements  support  him.  I  can  find  none  that  do. 
Such  records  as  I  have  come  upon,  all  point  to  the  East 
London  Theatre  1  as  the  place  of  her  first  appearance.  For 
example,  this,  from  the  Theatrical  Times  of  September  19, 
1846: 

Mrs.  Stirling's  early  efforts  were  devoted  to  the  study  of  music 
under  a  person  who  had  several  pupils  intended  for  the  stage,  and 
who  for  practice  were  in  the  habit  of  singing  in  choruses  in  some  of 
the  operas.  While  joining  these  she  evinced  a  desire  to  venture  on 
a  dramatic  life,  but  finding  no  encouragement  from  the  parties  by 
whom  she  was  surrounded,  she  resolved  to  pay  a  visit  to  the  east  end 
of  the  town,  and  accordingly  enrolled  herself  under  a  Mr.  Amherst, 
the  manager  of  a  very  small  theatre  in  that  locality,  playing,  as  Miss 
Fanny  Clifton,  everything  by  turns,  and  nothing  long,  at  a  very 
trifling  salary. 

An  article  in  The  Players,  of  February  25,  1860,  adds 
a  graphic  detail : 

She  informed  him  (Amherst)  that  she  wished  to  act,  that  she  had 
never  done  so,  but  felt  she  could  if  he  would  let  her  try.  The  kind 
old  man  agreed  that  she  should  try,  and  in  less  than  a  month  she 
appeared. 

1  According  to  Mr.  Baker  the  East  London  existed  from  1787-1828. 
It  must  in  fact  have  endured  longer. 


EARLY  YEARS  25 

Rather  less  naively  put,  and  more  convincing,  is  the 
corroborative  evidence  afforded  by  an  article  in  Tallis's 
Dramatic  Magazine  for  1851,  whose  author  also  asserts 
that  Miss  Fanny  Clifton  first  appeared  at  the  East  London. 
This  article — to  which  I  may  again  refer — is  very  interesting 
because,  unlike  others  that  touch  upon  Mrs.  Stirling's  early 
career,  it  is  evidently  the  work  of  someone  well  acquainted 
with  the  actress.  There  is  an  intimacy  about  it,  a  sympathy, 
a  sentiment  even,  that  suggests  personal  knowledge.  Read- 
ing it  we  feel  that  we  are  behind  the  scenes  :  it  is  possible, 
therefore,  that  the  details  may  have  been  supplied  by  Mrs. 
Stirling  herself. 

The  writer  in  Tallis's  has  just  told  of  the  girl's  return 
to  an  unhappy  and  impoverished  household,  and  of  her 
decision  to  try  the  stage. 

Mr.  Amherst,  the  proprietor  of  the  East  London  Theatre,  listened 
to  her  application,  and  readily  received  her  for  a  few  weeks  on  trial. 
She  returned  home  with  three  parts  in  her  pocket,  the  study  of  which 
she  commenced  without  delay.  She  was  in  the  way  of  earning  a  few 
shillings  a  week,  and  the  prospects  of  the  poor  girl  became  bright 
and  more  cheerful.  It  was  as  Fanny  Clifton  that  the  stage  neophyte 
claimed  the  sympathies  of  an  East  London  audience  for  the  sorrows 
of  "  Crazy  Jane." l 

This  was  probably  in  the  year  1829. 
Her    sympathizer    continues     on     the    more    personal 
note : 

There  is  something  touching  in  such  an  entrance  into  a  laborious 
and  dangerous  profession.  With  none  to  guide,  direct  or  support  her, 
Miss  Fanny  Clifton  was  left  entirely  to  chance  impulses,  and  the 
unchecked  influence  of  circumstances.  The  young  candidate  had, 
however,  although  she  knew  it  not,  considerable  qualifications — in 
a  handsome  person,  a  musical  voice,  and  a  store  of  animal  spirits. 

Those  belated  discoveries  concerning  her  physical  attrac- 
tions she  doubtless  made,  soon  enough,  but  the  individual 
who  could  write  thus  of  them,  and  of  the  girl  behind  them, 
certainly  had  met  her  in  person,  and  we  may  surely  accept 

1  I  cannot  be  sure  of  the  date.  Henry  Irving,  speaking  after  her  last 
performance,  in  "Faust,"  July  31,  1886,  at  the  Lyceum,  said  that  she  had 
been  before  the  London  public  for  fifty-seven  years.  That  brings  her  first 
appearance  to  1829. 


26      THE  STAGE  LIFE  OF  MRS.  STIRLING 

his  statement  that  Fanny  returned  home  with  some  parts 
in  her  pocket. 

What  were  those  parts  ?  According  to  Joseph  Knight, 
they  were  from  John  Stafford's  "  Pretender,  or  the  Rose  of 
Alvery,"  and  Dimond's  "  Hunter  of  the  Alps,"  "  her  principal 
business  being  comedy  and  Singing  Chambermaids."  These 
titles  may  be  correct,  but  his  date  is  wrong,  for  he  gives  it 
as  early  in  1832,  whereas,  by  that  time,  she  was  already 
at  the  Pavilion,  where,  he  says,  she  opened  on  Easter  Monday, 
for  leading  business  at  a  salary  of  £8  per  week,  as  "  Susan 
Oldfield"  in  "Speed  the  Plough,"  and  as  "Patrick"  in 
O'Keef 's  one  act  farce,  "  The  Poor  Soldier." 

This  is  not  the  fact.  Farrell  did  engage  her  for  the 
Pavilion — perhaps  at  £8  a  week — but  not  on  Easter  Monday, 
nor  in  either  of  the  parts  named,  though  she  may  well  have 
played  them  about  this  time.  The  young  actress  made 
her  first  appearance  at  the  Pavilion  on  January  9,  1882, 
as  "  Zephyrina,"  the  Widow,  in  "  The  Devil  and  the  Widow," 
when  Madame  Celeste,  the  celebrated  French  actress  and 
dancer,  was  also  making  her  d^but  at  the  same  theatre. 


But  before  we  follow  Fanny  Clifton's  fortunes  in  White- 
chapel  it  may  be  well,  for  a  moment,  to  remind  ourselves 
of  the  condition  of  the  drama  in  the  metropolis  at  that  time. 

The  outer  London  of  those  days  was  a  dangerous  and 
difficult  world  for  a  young  girl  to  be  cast  into.  Its  streets 
were  partially  and  dimly  lighted  with  gas  of  small  illuminating 
power.  You  carried  a  candle-lantern  with  you,  and  some- 
times a  blunderbuss  as  well.  Link-boys,  on  dark  nights, 
earned  a  living  by  lighting  you  home ;  and  timid  wayfarers 
would  wait — as  they  do  to-day  in  times  of  winter  fog,  or  of 
railway  breakdown — until  others,  bound  for  the  same 
destination,  could  afford  them  company,  and  courage  against 
footpads  or  other  lurking  dangers.1 

For  theatrical  folk,  in  particular — whether  player  or 
play-goers — suburban  London  was  neither  safe  nor  convenient. 
Daily  newspapers,  in  1827,  were  priced  at  sixpence  each, 
and,  circulating  almost  exclusively  in  the  clubs,  libraries, 

1  John  Hollingshead  :    My  Lifetime. 


EARLY  YEARS  27 

taverns,  and  coffee-houses,  were  not  easily  accessible  to  the 
poorer  sections  of  the  community.  A  prospective  visitor 
to  the  Surrey,  or  to  the  Coburg,  must  to  the  tobacconist,  or 
the  pastry-cook,  there  to  determine,  from  an  inspection  of 
the  long,  badly  printed  "  Bills  of  the  Play,"  what  dramatic 
fare  was  open  to  his  choice. 

Such  fare — in  theory  at  least — necessarily  excluded 
Shakespearean  plays,  as  Shakespeare  wrote  them,  because 
the  production  of  "legitimate  drama"  was  still  the  privilege 
of  the  two  patent  theatres,  Drury  Lane  and  Covent  Garden, 
whose  managers  jealously  guarded  their  rights,  and  would 
set  the  machinery  of  the  law  in  motion  against  any  proprietors 
of  the  "  minor  houses,"  as  they  were  called,  who  dared  too 
openly  or  grossly  to  infringe  that  monopoly.  This  wrong 
was  rendered  all  the  more  exasperating  to  those  who  must 
needs  endure  it,  by  the  fact  that  the  managements  of  both 
Drury  Lane  and  Covent  Garden — instead  of  exploiting  the 
plays  for  the  production  of  which  their  theatres  nominally 
existed — were  offering  crude  spectacle  and  melodrama, 
with  "  Real  Lions,"  "  Terrific  Combats,"  "  Awful  Situations," 
and  all  the  other  absurd  clap-trap  of  the  showman,  set 
forth  in  puffing  and  mendacious  bills. 

So  glaring  an  anachronism  could  not  long  endure. 
Beyond  the  immediate  interests  of  the  two  theatres  concerned, 
the  privilege  had  no  friends  ;  and  the  patrons  of  the  fifteen 
houses  open  in  London  in  1832  were  numerous  and  powerful. 
An  advertisement  headed  "  Cause  of  the  Drama,"  in  the 
Sunday  Times  of  January  8,  1832,  informed  its  readers  that 
there  were  lying  for  signature  at  the  Sadlers  Wells,  Surrey, 
Royal  Coburg,  Queens,  Pavilion,  and  other  theatres,  copies 
of  a  Petition  to  Parliament  for  the  repeal  of  such  Acts  of 
Parliament  as  tend  to  create  a  monopoly  in  the  right  of 
performing  plays,  etc.  On  Friday,  February  24,  following, 
there  was  held,  at  the  City  of  London  Tavern,  under  the 
presidency  of  Edward  Bulwer,  a  meeting,  "to  take  into 
consideration  the  best  means  of  effectually  repelling  the 
attempt  of  the  patent  theatres  to  establish  an  absolute 
monopoly  of  the  legitimate  drama  in  this  city." 

"  Reform  the  stage  as  we  are  about  to  do,"  said  the 
chairman  in  the  course  of  his  address,  "  and  the  literature 


28       THE   STAGE  LIFE   OF   MRS.   STIRLING 

of  the  stage  will  reform  itself."  This  first  necessary  clearing 
of  the  ground,  mainly  through  the  influence  of  Bulwer,  and 
of  Macready,1  was  accomplished,  eleven  years  later,  by 
the  Theatres  Act  of  1848,2  though  the  second  reform,  as 
devoutly  to  be  wished,  could  not  come  until  the  theatre 
has  passed  through  nearly  another  half-century  of  decline. 

Among  the  individuals  most  active  in  evading  and 
combating  the  hated  monopoly,  was  Davidge,  manager  of 
the  Coburg,  under  whom,  during  her  first  northern  tour, 
Miss  Clifton  was  soon  to  serve,  if  she  had  not  done  so  already, 
as  Knight  asserts. 

Davidge  was  a  capable  melodramatic  actor,  excelling 
especially,  "  in  testy  and  imbecile  old  men  " — who,  after 
playing  leads  at  that  house  for  some  time,  had  become,  in 
1826,  sole  lessee.  His  seven  years  of  management  were 
marked  by  a  spirit  of  daring,  that  was  favourably  commented 
upon  by  the  press  of  the  time,8  and  found  scope  for  ingenuity 
in  devising  means  to  produce  Shakespearean  dramas,  that, 
while  still  bearing  some  resemblance  to  the  originals,  were 
yet  sufficiently  tampered  with  to  keep  him  upon  the  windy 
side  of  the  law.  Thus  "  Othello  "  becomes  "  The  Moor  of 
Venice,"  and  "The  Merchant"  dissolves  into  "The  Three 
Caskets  "  —  disguises  as  thin  as  those  practised  upon  us 
to-day  by  the  Don  Giovannis  of  high  opera.  Nevertheless,  it 
behoved  Davidge  to  be  careful ;  for  although  such  small  fry 
as  the  "  penny  gaffs,"  and  the  booth  managers  of  Bartlemy 
Fair,  might  do  the  forbidden  thing  with  comparative  impunity 
— save  for  an  occasional  raid — the  minor  theatres  proper 
were  much  more  jealously  watched.  The  Coburg,  indeed, 
had  been  successfully  attacked  by  Drury  Lane,  after  Booth's 
first  engagement  there  in  1819-1820;  and  the  attackers 
had  power  to  ask  for  fines  and  imprisonment  against  the 
offenders,  in  each  case  of  infringement,  even  though  both 
royal  theatres,  at  that  very  time,  were  putting  educated 
elephants  at  one  house  into  competition  with  tight-rope 
dancers  at  the  other,  and  were  filling  up  the  bills  with  songs 

1  A  contemporary  wrote  :    "  There  should  be  a  statue  to  each  of  them 
(Bulwer  and  Macready)  in  every  theatre  in  the  land." 
*  6  and  7  Vic.  cap.  68. 
»  E.g.  The  Constitution,  November  6,  1831. 


EARLY   YEARS  29 

kept  short,  "  to  enable  the  singers  to  do  a  double  turn  at 
Vauxall  Gardens." 

Illegitimate  legitimate  drama,  however,  was  not  the  staple 
fare,  either  at  the  Coburg,  during  Davidge's  management, 
or  at  the  other  transpontine  houses.  They  relied  principally 
upon  melodrama,  hot  and  strong,  and  upon  spectacular 
pieces,  not  very  dissimilar  from  those  that  the  patent  theatres 
were  putting  on.  In  1832  was  performed,  at  the  Coburg, 
an  Indian  melodrama,  "  Hyder  Ali,"  in  which  the  performing 
lions  of  Martin,  a  Frenchman,  played  prominent  think- 
ing, and  roaring,  parts,1  while  even  up  to  1840  one  finds 
such  unconsciously  humorous  announcements  as  this,  of 
May  25,  1839,  "  The  proprietor  is  happy  to  inform  the  public 
that  the  Monkeys,  Dogs,  and  Goats  having  arrived,  they 
will  appear  together  with  the  Winter  and  Lehman  family." 

Play  and  audiences  were  alike  rough,  even  though  the 
Coburg  people  did  not  perhaps  wholly  deserve  the  epithets 
Kean  flung  at  them,  across  the  footlights,  in  June  1831  : 

I  have  acted  in  every  theatre  of  the  United  Kingdom  of  Great  Britain 
and  Ireland,  I  have  acted  in  all  the  principal  theatres  throughout 
the  United  States  of  America  ;  but  in  my  life  I  never  acted  to  such 
a  set  of  ignorant  unmitigated  brutes  as  I  now  see  before  me. 

John  Hollingshead 2  has  given  us,  in  his  racy  vernacular 
style,  a  vivid  description  of  a  performance  at  the  Victoria, 
as  the  Coburg  had  come  to  be  called,  of  "  Oliver  Twist," 
when  the  part  of  "  Bill  Sikes  "  was  played  by  Mr.  E.  F.  Savile, 
brother  of  Miss  Helen  Faucit,  the  accomplished  and  beautiful 
actress  with  whom  Mrs.  Stirling  was  often  to  appear. 

The  gallery  of  the  Victoria  was  a  huge  amphitheatre,  probably 
containing  about  fifteen  hundred  perspiring  creatures  ;  most  of  the 
men  in  shirt-sleeves,  and  most  of  the  women  bare-headed,  with 
coloured  handkerchiefs  round  their  shoulders,  called  "  bandanna 
wipes  "  in  the  slang  of  the  district,  and  probably  stolen  from  the 
pockets  of  old  gentlemen  who  were  given  to  snuff-taking.  This  chicka- 
leary  audience  was  always  thirsty — and  not  ashamed.  It  tied  hand- 
kerchiefs together — of  which  it  always  seemed  to  have  plenty — until 
they  formed  a  rope,  which  was  used  to  haul  up  large  bottles  of  beer 
from  the  pit,  and  occasionally  hats  that  had  been  dropped  below. 

1  The  Old  Vic,  by  John  Booth,  p.  26. 
»  My  Lifetime,  i.  188,  189. 


30      THE   STAGE  LIFE   OF  MRS.   STIRLING 

This  body  of  unregenerate  playgoers  was  maliciously  tortured 
night  after  night,  by  Mr.  E.  F.  Savile  and  half  a  dozen  other  repre- 
sentatives of  Dickens's  criminal  animal.  The  murder  of  Nancy  was 
the  great  scene.  Nancy  was  always  dragged  round  the  stage  by 
her  hair,  and  after  this  effort  Sikes  always  looked  up  defiantly  at 
the  gallery,  as  he  was  doubtless  told  to  do  in  the  marked  prompt 
copy.  He  was  always  answered  by  one  loud  and  fearful  curse,  yelled 
by  the  whole  mass  like  a  Handel  Festival  chorus.  The  curse  was 
answered  by  Sikes  dragging  Nancy  twice  round  the  stage,  and  then, 
like  Ajax,  defying  the  lightning.  The  simultaneous  yell  then  became 
louder  and  more  blasphemous.  Finally,  when  Sikes,  working  up  to 
a  well  rehearsed  climax,  smeared  Nancy  with  red  ochre,  and  taking 
her  by  the  hair  (a  most  powerful  wig)  seemed  to  dash  her  brains  out 
on  the  stage,  no  explosion  of  dynamite  invented  by  the  modern  anar- 
chist, no  language  ever  dreamt  of  in  Bedlam  could  equal  the  outburst. 
A  thousand  enraged  voices,  which  sounded  like  ten  thousand,  with 
the  roar  of  a  dozen  escaped  menageries,  filled  the  theatre  and  deafened 
the  audience,  and  when  the  smiling  ruffian  came  forward  and  bowed, 
their  voices  in  thorough  plain  English  expressed  a  fierce  determination 
to  tear  his  sanguinary  entrails  from  his  sanguinary  body. 

There,  certainly  in  plain  enough  English,  is  one  of  the 
many  reasons  why  middle-class  Victorian  fathers  did  not 
often  positively  encourage  their  daughters  to  venture  upon 
the  minor  stage ;  yet  it  was  upon  just  such  a  stage — with 
the  Whitechapel  Road  for  the  Waterloo  Road — that  the 
daughter  of  Captain  Hehl — late  of  the  Foot  Guards — found 
herself  definitely  launched  into  theatrical  life. 

Sensational  melodrama,  of  course,  was  the  stock  attraction 
at  such  a  house  as  the  Pavilion.  "  As  at  the  Coburg,"  wrote 
the  Morning  Advertiser,  "  the  lieges  of  Whitechapel  have 
ever  been  remarkable  for  their  attachment  to  fiery  horrors, 
marvellous  incidents,  and  terrific  situations."  Here  also 
Sikes'  equivalent  drags  innocent  maidens  by  their  hair,  and 
"  the  gamester  dies  in  agony."  To  witness  these  attractions 
swarmed  a  populace  largely  composed  of  seafaring  men,  and 
so  numerous,  unruly,  and  uncouth,  that  one  reads  occasionally 
of  a  boy  being  trampled  to  death  in  the  gallery,  and  of  large 
bottles  being  flung  upon  the  stage,  to  the  terror  of  the  actors. 
Sometimes,  nevertheless,  quality  honoured  the  Pavilion  with 
their  august  presence,  as  on  September  29,  1830,  when 
"  we  observed  there  several  magistrates,  and  two  or  three 
families  of  distinction."  Now  and  again  a  prostitute,  such 


EARLY   YEARS  81 

as   "  Lady  Melville,"  would  make  an  uproar  upon  being 
refused  admission. 

The  press  in  general,  commenting  upon  FarrelPs  success 
at  the  Pavilion,  marvelled  how  the  thing  was  done.  "  We 
would  as  soon  expect  to  make  a  Benefit  on  Salisbury  Plain  " 
— Salisbury  plain  has  seen  more  players  since  then,  than 
were  dreamed  of  in  1830 — "  as  to  establish  a  theatre  at  such 
an  unlikely  neighbourhood  ;  yet  you  (Farrell)  have  succeeded, 
and  therefore  we  stamp  thee  a  good  manager." 

He  was  at  least  a  bold  and  quick-witted  one ;  for  when, 
upon  an  August  evening  of  1831,  the  second  piece  was  about 
to  commence,  that  perspiring  crowd — much  more  jealous 
of  their  "rights"  than  is  an  audience  of  to-day — declined  to 
let  the  play  proceed.  Farrell  came  forward,  and  desired 
to  know  the  cause  of  the  uproar.  A  voice  shouted  :  "  Why 
doesn't  Payne  do  his  duty,  why  don't  he  come  forward 
and  dance  ? — his  name  is  in  the  bill  ?  "  Swiftly  came  the 
retort  courteous :  "  Why,  ladies  and  gentlemen  ?  Because 
it  is  our  constant  study  to  give  you  pleasure  not  pain."  l 
The  performance  was  successfully  concluded. 

As  an  actor,  Farrell,  who,  with  Freer,  frequently  played 
the  romantic  leads,  was  one  of  the  blatant,  robustious  type 
popular  at  such  theatres  in  those  days.  A  contemporary 
critic  wrote  of  him,  at  this  time  :  "  His  action  was,  as  usual, 
too  redundent,  and  his  tone  too  boisterous  by  half.  These 
are  the  rocks  upon  which  this  actor  dashes,  night  after 
night." 

When  one  remembers  what  the  spectators,  as  well  as  the 
actors,  had  to  put  up  with,  one  is  not  surprised  that  the 
house  was  sometimes  fractious.  In  February  1832,  for 
example — six  weeks  after  Fanny  Clifton's  first  perform- 
ance at  the  Pavilion — there  is  a  fiasco  with  the  drama  of 
"  Brutus,"  otherwise  "  Julius  Caesar,"  upon  the  noblest 
Roman  being  played  that  night  by  "a  tradesman  from 
Gosport,"  one  Woolgar, 

who  could  neither  look  well,  act  well,  nor  speak  well.  When  Brutus 
exclaimed  "  Hear  that  dreadful  peal  of  thunder  ?  "  we  heard  only 
the  rain  box,  with  the  pleasing  accompaniment  of  the  prompter's 

1  Payne's  name  \vas  in  the  bill  for  the  interlude,  not  for  the  third  piece. 


32       THE   STAGE  LIFE   OF   MRS.   STIRLING 

voice,  squeaking  like  a  torn-tit  on  the  dome  of  Saint  Paul's,  "  that 
he  was  not  engaged  to  play  thunder — that  he  was  not  the  thunderer, 
and  damn  his  eyes  if  he  would  thunder." 

When,  on  January  9,  1832,  Miss  Fanny  Clifton  made  her 
first  appearance  as  "  Zephyrina,"  she  was  hindered,  no 
doubt,  by  two  of  Mr.  Woolgar's  disabilities — she  could 
neither  act  well  nor  speak  well.  Good  looks  and  high  spirits 
alone  had  won  her  a  line  to  herself  upon  the  bills.  Of  her 
performance  in  "  The  Man  in  the  Iron  Mask  "x  a  critic  writes  : 
"  Mdlle.  Aubry  was  given  to  Miss  Fanny  Clifton,  '  a  pretty 
piece  of  uninteresting  matter  }  with  just  enough  ability  to 
speak  her  lines,  and  no  more."  One  member  of  the  cast, 
nevertheless,  was  already  beginning  to  find  her  a  matter 
of  interest,  as  we  shall  soon  see. 

That  same  evening  she  played  "  Faith  Gough  "  in  "  The 
Wept  of  Wish-ton- Wish,"  which  effort  in  alliteration — as 
the  play-bill  hastens  to  explain — "  is  the  title  of  an  American 
drama  founded  partly  on  Cooper's  celebrated  novel  of  The 
Borderers.  Wish-ton-Wish  is  an  Indian  valley,  and  the 
Wept  alludes  to  the  lamentable  fate  of  the  heroine,  "  Hope 
Gough,"  aged  fifteen,  and  played  by  Mdlle.  Celeste. 

During,  or  after,  Easter,  the  theatre  was  remodelled  and 
decorated,  and  the  ceiling  painted  from  a  design  by  Leitch. 
On  April  23  the  debutante  played  "  Fair  Star,"  in  the  then 
popular  romance,  "  Cherry  and  Fair  Star,"  of  which  the 
principal  attraction  consisted  "in  the  beauty  of  the  scenery, 
and  the  extent  and  novel  working  of  the  machinery." 

To  the  girl  herself  the  principal  attraction  may  have 
been  Edward  Stirling,2  who  played  "  Charles,"  upon  that 
occasion,  and  whom  she  now  meets,  it  seems,  for  the  first 
time  during  this  spring  of  1832.  He  has  been  in  the  Pavilion 
bills  not  long  before,  on  Easter  Monday,  April  4, 1881,  whence 

1  January  30,  1832. 

»  Edward  Lambert  (Stirling)  was  born  at  Thame,  Oxfordshire,  iu  1809, 
and  made  his  first  appearance  at  the  Pavilion,  under  Cooke  and  Campbell, 
in  1828.  He  then  went  to  Richmond  under  Klanert,  who  was  at  that 
time  in  want  of  "a  young  gentleman  to  look  well  and  play  the  light  comedy 
and  some  of  the  amiable  assassins."  When  Klanert  closed  down,  Stirling 
went  to  Windsor  under  Penley,  then  to  Croydon  and  Gravesend,  under 
Billy  Hall.  Later  he  was  at  Dundee  under  Bass,  playing  seconds  to  Edmund 
Kean,  Vandenhoff,  and  other  stars,  before  returning  to  the  Pavilion.  He 
became  an  adroit  adapter  of  plays,  a  sound  actor  of  character,  and  ulti- 
mately manager  of  Dniry  Lane  Theatre,  and  author  of  Old  Drury  Lane. 


EARLY  YEARS  33 

he  had  come  from  Hastings  theatre,  to  play  in  Douglas 
Jen-old's  drama,  "  Martha  Willis,"  and  "  The  Man  of  the 
Black  Forest,"  by  Howard  Payne.  He  disappeared  from 
the  Pavilion  bills  soon  after,  to  reappear  in  "  Cherry  and 
Fair  Star,"  and  to  remain  with  Fanny  Clifton  in  the  company, 
until  they  leave  it,  as  man  and  wife.  Launched  already 
upon  a  successful  career,  she  was  about  to  compromise 
her  chances  of  happiness  by  an  unsuccessful,  a  disastrous 
marriage. 

Into  the  details  of  her  last  performances  at  the  Pavilion, 
I  have  not  time  to  go  ;  and  must  refer  the  reader  to  the 
chronological  list  of  Mrs.  Stirling's  parts  in  the  Appendix. 
I  will  mention  only  her  attempt  as  "  Bella  "  in  "  The  Wreck 
Ashore,"  because  a  contemporary  criticism  upon  it  is 
interesting,  as  showing  how  limited,  as  yet,  was  the  young 
actress's  technique : 

"  Bella,"  writes  the  press-man,  "  was  assigned  to  Miss  F.  Clifton, 
a  very  clever  girl  in  her  own  line,  but  without  the  least  pretensions 
to  sustain  such  a  character  l — it  was  the  most  abortive  attempt  at 
the  Fanny  Kelly  style  ever  exhibited.  We  sympathize  equally  with 
the  lady,  the  dramatis  personce  and  the  audience  on  the  occasion ; 
and  must  observe  that  the  managers  are  wanting  in  their  duty  to 
the  public,  when  they  fill  up  characters  with  individuals  of  whose 
incompetency  they  must  be  aware,  and  such  conduct  is  less  pardon- 
able when  they  have  an  efficient  representative  at  their  command. 
Miss  Macarthy  ought  to  have  played  the  part." 

Miss  Macarthy  was  then  the  leading  lady  at  the  Pavilion  2  ; 
and  there  is  probably  some  personal  bias  in  the  quoted 
critique.  Nevertheless,  when  all  excuses  are  made,  who  can 
doubt  that  Fanny  Clifton,  in  those  early  days,  was  an  artisan 
working  for  her  living,  rather  than  an  artist  working  for 
her  art.  Neither  her  ambitions  nor  her  ideals  are  as  yet 
awakened.  The  next  stage  of  her  career  was  to  beget  both. 

1  Stirling  at  this  time  was  equally  crude.     "  The  Walter  Barnard  of 
Stirling  was  an  imperfect  performance — it  was  anything  but  an  effective 
representation  of  a  young  Essex  Farmer.'1 

2  Miss  Macarthy  went  on  later   to  the  Coburg — i.e.  the  Old  Vic.     The 
Pavilion  continued  to  present  English  plays  until  after  1900,  when,  as  the 
Jewish    community    of    Whitechapel    increased    in    numbers    and    wealth, 
occasional   Jewish    Saturday   matinees   were    organized.     These    were    uni- 
formly successful,  and  by  1909  the  Pavilion  had  become  a  Yiddish  theatre. 
It   was   from   the   Pavilion   that   Mr.    J.    B.    Fagan   brought   Mr.    Maurice 
Moscovitch  to  the  Court.     The  theatre  in  which  Fanny  Clifton  played  was 
burned  down  in  1856,  when  the  existing  building  was  erected. 

8 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  PROVINCES  AND  THE  ADELPHI 

1832-37 

To  Manchester  with  Stirling — Hard  times — First  success  at  Birmingham — 
Awakening  of  artistic  consciousness,  and  of  ambition — Engaged  by 
Bond  at  the  Adelphi — "  The  Ghost  Story  "  and  "  Luke  Somerton  " 
— "  Rienzi,"  a  typical  Adelphi  spectacle  of  the  time — Decadence 
of  the  drama — Bunn's  methods  at  Drury  Lane — Macready  and  Bunn 
— Mrs.  Stirling  tours,  and  returns  to  Adelphi — Drunkenness  on  the 
stage — The  value  of  experience  to  a  player — "  A  Flight  to  America," 
with  "Jim  Crow" — She  makes  a  hit  as  "Sally  Snow." 

BEFOBE  I  quitted  the  Pavilion  I  found  a  better  half  in  Fanny 
Clifton.  We  married  at  once  ;  started  for  Liverpool  with  Davidge,1 
at  the  Amphitheatre  ;  London  Company,  Watkin  Burroughs  stage 
manager  ;  Batty  furnished  horses  and  his  equestrian  troupe.  Bur- 
roughs resigned,  and  I  accepted  the  management. 2 

But  there  was  a  hard  struggle  before  them.     Stirling  thus 
continues  the  story,  in  his  staccato  style  : 

Queen's  Theatre,  Manchester. — Henry  Beverly's  direction.  Myself 
and  wife  were  engaged  to  lead  the  business  ;  this  proved  very  bad — 
salaries  stopped,  no  resources.  What  was  to  be  done  ?  It  occurred 
to  me  to  try  my  hand  at  writing  a  piece  for  a  benefit.3 

So  Edward  Stirling,  in  addition  to  his  capacities  as 
actor,  manager,  and  husband,  became  dramatic  author  too, 
and  that  of  the  most  prolific  kind  ;  for,  as  he  phrased  it. 
"  quantity  rather  than  quality  was  the  order  of  the  day." 
I  fancy  that  it  remained  the  order  of  too  many  of  Stirling's 
days. 

As  for  the  acting  of  the  young  couple,  here  again  we 
may  suppose  that  quantity  supplanted  quality,  but,  to 

1  Davidge's  speculation  in  management  at  Liverpool  was  a  very  bad 
one,  and  ended  in  financial  disaster.  His  connection  with  the  Coburg  came 
to  an  end  in  1834. 

a  Stirling's  Old  Drury  Lane,  i.  75.  3  Ibid. 

34 


PROVINCES  AND   THE  ADELPHI  35 

the  woman,  already  the  higher  outlook  is  coming.  From 
Manchester,  it  seems,  she  went  to  Birmingham,1  and  there, 
for  the  first  time,  began  really  to  win,  and  to  enjoy,  success. 
Once  more  the  sympathetic  writer  in  Tallis's  Magazine 
throws  light  upon  the  darkness,  in  lines  that,  though 
involved  and  weighted  by  the  pompous  mannerism  of  the 
time,  have  a  pretty  touch  of  intimacy,  beauty,  and  truth: 

Here  (at  Birmingham)  the  new  performer  felt  that  she  began  to 
be  valued.  Her  benefits  were  well  patronized.  A  consciousness  of 
power,  to  which  she  was  previously  a  comparative  stranger,  awakened 
within  her,  and  gradually  became  familiar  to  her  opening  intelligence. 
Delivered  from  the  merely  domestic  and  melodramatic,  she  had  now 
to  give  utterance  to  the  thought  of  beauty  in  words  of  music,  and 
perception  of  the  poetic  dawned  more  and  more  on  her  awakened 
spirit.  For  the  first  time  she  learned  that  acting  was  an  art,  and 
that  there  was  more  in  it  than  the  mere  mimicry  of  manner  and 
emotion.  There  was  character  to  be  conceived,  and  passion  to  be 
illustrated — pleasure  to  be  excited  to  temper  pain,  and  the  illusions 
of  taste  to  be  magically  exhibited. 

Thus  it  was  that  a  genius  originally  ignorant  of  its  destiny, 
received  from  the  attempt  and  practise  of  an  art,  a  still  increasing 
development,  whose  very  existence  otherwise  might  never  have  been 
suspected.  Still,  however,  there  was  more  progress  than  feeling. 
She  took  more  and  more  delight  in  acting,  because  of  acquired  facility  ; 
and  continued  to  improve,  because  she  still  continued  unreluctantly 
to  work  ;  but  the  ambition  to  excel  had  not  yet  been  conceived,  or 
the  expectation  formed,  that  the  high  places  in  her  profession  were 
within  her  reach.  She  had  yet  to  rise  to  this  perception  ;  other 
influences  were  needed  to  stimulate  exertion  and  desire.  She  had 
yet  to  struggle  on  darkly  before  she  attained  to  these. 

Already  good  reports  concerning  her  had  reached  London. 
At  the  close  of  1835,  Bond,  then  manager  of  the  Adelphi, 
sent  for  Fanny  Clifton.  She  returned  to  London,  with 
her  husband,  and  was  promptly  engaged  to  make  her  first 
appearance  at  the  West  End.  At  that  theatre,  on  January 
1836,  at  the  age  of  twenty-three,  Fanny  Stirling,  following 
Mrs.  Nisbett,  played  "  Biddy  Nutts,"  in  the  then  well-known 
melodrama  "  A  Dream  at  Sea,"  by  that  prolific  playwright, 
the  low  comedian,  Buckstone.  She  seems  to  have  suc- 

1  I  suppose  that  her  husband  accompanied  her,  because — according 
to  Actors  by  Daylight,  December  8,  1836 — it  was  at  Birmingham,  under 
Armitsead,  that  Stirling  wrote  and  produced  one  of  his  earliest  successful 
plays,  "  Sadak  and  Kalisrade." 


36       THE   STAGE  LIFE   OF   MRS.   STIRLING 

ceeded  from  the  start,  winning  at  once  the  good-will  of  a 
West  London  audience,  though,  to  judge  by  the  following 
comment,  she  did  not  impress  a  consciousness  of  her  serious 
value  at  once  upon  all  the  critics : 

Mrs.  Stirling  possesses  in  an  eminent  degree  every  requisite  for 
a  low  comedy  performer ;  she  uses  all  with  admirable  tact  and  dis- 
cretion, and  she  is  withal  a  very  pretty  woman. 

Though,  no  doubt,  often  exasperating,  by  its  futility,  to 
an  actress  of  her  keen  intelligence,  the  type  of  play  favoured 
by  the  Adelphi  management  must  have  given  her  some 
valuable  experience.  Here  is  a  sample.  On  January  3, 
in  the  company  of  Buckstone,  O.  Smith,  Younge,  and 
Hemming,  she  plays,  as  "  Catherine  Graham,"  in  an  absurd 
and  totally  inexplicable  production,  "  The  Ghost  Story," 
wherein  a  smuggler  with  a  sheet,  a  turnip,  and  a  candle, 
concocts  a  grimly  spectre,  for  the  terrorizing  of  intruders 
to  his  haunt.  Evidently  she  tried  her  hardest ;  for  although 
Fanny  Stirling  had  been  but  three  days  before  the  London 
critics,  The  Times  *  man,  already  discerning  ability,  is  moved 
to  write  thus: 

Of  Mrs.  Stirling,  who  is  a  recent  acquisition,  it  is  not  too  much 
to  speak  in  terms  of  high  encomium  ;  she  is  a  natural  actress,  and 
imparts  even  to  a  character  which  never  existed  in  nature  an  appear- 
ance of  actual  existence  and  life.  It  is  to  be  regretted  that  her  talents 
are  not  better  employed  than  in  supporting  a  character  like  that  in 
which  she  appeared  last  night.  It  is  quite  clear  she  is  capable  of 
much  better  things,  and  it  would  be  the  interest,  as  well  as  the  duty, 
of  the  management  to  give  her  a  fair  chance  of  success  in  her  pro- 
fession. 

The  endeavour  to  give  "  an  appearance  of  actual  exist- 
ence and  life  "  to  characters  owing  no  such  qualities  to 
their  author,  was  often,  thenceforth,  a  part  of  Mrs.  Stirling's 
duty. 

Her  next  task  gives  us  an  illuminating  example  of  Adelphi 
methods  under  the  management  of  Yates.  The  play  was 
"  Luke  Somerton,"  a  production  heralded  by  a  puff  pre- 
liminary, typical  of  the  time,  announcing  upon  the  play-bill, 
"  a  Grand  New  Melodrama  with  scenic  effects  and  machinery 

1  January  7,  1836. 


PROVINCES   AND   THE  ADELPHI  37 

never  yet  attempted  in  this  building,  etc."  It  proved  to 
be  a  piece  of  the  kind  that  had  been  done  frequently  at  the 
Coburg,  under  Davidge's  management,  full  of  "  pageants 
and  dramatic  effects,"  including  blue  flames  and  a  "  corpse 
light  "  at  Peel  castle,  heralding  death.  "  Luke  Somerton," 
played  by  O.  Smith,  was  a  later  "  Paul  Jones,"  who,  on 
the  way  to  execution,  shoots  himself,  at  the  very  moment 
when  his  daughter  "  Louisa,"  played  by  Mrs.  Stirling, 
rushes  on  to  announce  his  pardon. 

Some  of  these  melodramas  succeeded,  and  others  failed  ; 
but  what  most  annoyed  the  better  class  of  playgoer,  at 
this  time,  was  the  fact  that,  whether  applauded  on  the 
first  night,  or  incontinently  damned,  the  drama  was  an- 
nounced in  next  morning's  advertisments,  as  having  been 
44  received  with  unbounded  applause  by  a  most  brilliant  and 
crowded  audience." 

To  Macready,  then  touring  in  the  West  of  England, 
belongs  much  of  the  credit  for  having  been  the  first  of  the 
managers  to  put  an  end,  once  for  all,  to  the  puff  mendacious. 
This  is  another  of  the  many  debts  our  stage  owes  to  him. 

On  February  13  the  curtain  rose  at  the  Adelphi 
upon  a  production,  concerning  which — though  Mrs.  Stirling 
played  only  a  minor  part  in  it — I  shall  say  something,  in 
further  illustration  of  theatrical  methods  of  those  days.  The 
drama  in  question  was  44  Rienzi,  the  Last  of  the  Tribunes," 
adapted  by  Buckstone  from  Bulwer's  novel  so  entitled. 
Slap-dash  was  the  playwright's  method.  From  the  formal 
and  stately  commonplaces  of  the  novel  he  borrowed  portions 
of  dialogue,  cut  them  up  into  lengths,  sandwiched  them 
with  interpolations  of  his  own,  neither  formal  nor  stately, 
and  duly  served  them  to  their  respective  speakers.  Mrs. 
Stirling's  share  did  not  amount  to  much,  but  what  she  had 
probably  amused  her,  though  she  was  not,  I  suppose,  heroine 
enough  to  approach,  without  flinching,  the  "  live  "  horses, 
that  nearly  kicked  off  their  lady  riders,  nor  archaeologist 
enough  to  be  amused  by  the  medley  of  costumes — including 
armour  of  the  Greek,  Roman,  and  mediaeval  periods — and 
dresses  of  Italy,  Sicily,  Savoy,  and  other  countries  all  variously 
and  incoherently  mingled.1 

1  The  Times,  February  4,  1836. 


38       THE   STAGE  LIFE   OF   MRS.   STIRLING 

The  critic  of  the  Sunday  Times,  after  a  satirical  allusion 
to  the  chivalric  character  of  the  Adelphi  entertainments, 
continued  : 

To  Elton  is  assigned  the  part  of  "  Rienzi,"  and,  amidst  the  strange 
confusion,  he  possesses  a  sufficient  portion  of  dignity  to  make  us 
regard  "  The  Last  of  the  Tribunes  "  with  respect.  Buckstone,  how- 
ever, as  a  small  tailor,  and  O.  Smith,  as  a  huge  blacksmith,  are  the 
first  creatures  in  our  imagination.  They  do  not  precisely  give  us 
any  idea  of  Roman  manners  .  .  .  but  they  present  us  with  a  sketch 
of  "  plebeians  and  their  politics,"  as  the  bills  say,  which  is  infinitely 
ludicrous.  .  .  .  Mrs.  Honey  appears  as  a  page  in  a  very  superb  tunic 
of  blue  velvet  and  gold,  and  yellow  silk  stockings,  and  her  countenance 
is  most  appropriately  beautified  by  a  pair  of  moustachios,  a  species 
of  ornament  not  used  by  the  other  Romans. 

In  regard  to  the  costumes  generally,  we  imagine  that,  if  one  of 
the  gentlemen  of  Rome  were  to  rise  from  the  dead,  he  would  be 
exceedingly  puzzled  to  recognize  his  own  countrymen. 

Thus,  amid  falling  ruins,  and  the  glare  of  red  fire,  the 
curtain  dropped,  for  ever,  upon  "  Rienzi,"  the  general 
comment  of  the  town  being,  that  London  "  was  saturated 
with  spectacle." 

"  Victorine,  or  I'll  sleep  on  It,"  which  followed  the 
Roman  play,  gave  Mrs.  Stirling  an  opportunity  to  take  up 
one  of  Mrs.  Yates's  favourite  parts.  Incidentally,  the  scenes 
at  its  production  reveal  again  the  disorderliness  of  theatrical 
audiences  of  the  early  nineteenth  century.  The  authorities 
received  many  complaints  of  gross  acts  of  misconduct  and 
brutality  at  the  pit  doors,  and  one  is  inclined  to  think  that 
London  managers  might  well  have  imitated  their  brethren 
in  Paris,  by  posting  sentinels  among  the  spectators,  to 
maintain  order. 

On  March  26  the  Adelphi  closed,  when  Gallot — re- 
presenting Yates  and  Gladstanes,  the  lessees — made  the 
customary  farewell  speech.  Mrs.  Stirling  occupied  herself, 
during  part  of  the  summer,  with  a  provincial  tour,  in  the 
course  of  which  she  revisited  Birmingham — where  she 
increased  her  previous  good  reputation — and  several  towns 
of  Lancashire  and  Yorkshire. 

During  the  theatrical  holiday,  that  section  of  the  press 
interested  in  stage  matters  took  occasion  to  bewail  the 
existing  state  of  affairs. 


PROVINCES   AND   THE  ADELPHI  39 

The  regular  drama  [wrote  the  Sunday  Times] 1  has  nearly  passed 
from  our  stage — tragedy,  and  genuine  comedy,  have  given  way  to 
glaring  spectacle,  to  operatic  or  melodramatic  pieces  imported  from 
the  continent,  and  stuffed  with  the  morbid  sensibility  of  Scribe,  or 
the  grotesque  romance  of  Victor  Hugo. 

At  the  bottom  of  much  of  the  prevailing  discontent  in 
the  theatrical  world  were  the  methods  of  Bunn,  at  Drury 
Lane.  This  famous,  or  infamous,  manager,  after  "  cornering  " 
many  leading  actors  of  the  day — such  as  Macready,  Harley, 
Farren,  Vandenhoff,  Warde,  and  Ellen  Tree — and  having 
promised  the  best  national  drama,  both  tragedy  and  comedy — 
proceeded  to  redeem  those  promises  by  putting  on  such 
pieces  as  "  The  Seige  of  La  Rochelle,"  and  "  The  Jewess." 
More  and  more  bitter  grew  the  actors'  discontent,  more 
and  more  severe  the  press  comments.  The  New  Monthly 
printed  the  following,  aimed  at  Bunn  : 

The  lessees'  sayings  and  doings  all  tend  consistently  to  one  point 
— all  tend  to  lower  public  taste,  to  taint  public  morals,  to  lessen  public 
amusement,  to  subvert  the  stage,  to  degrade  the  actor,  to  destroy 
the  very  profession  ;  to  dishonour  the  drama,  to  repress  the  imagina- 
tion, to  dry  up  the  springs  of  human  sympathy  ;  to  make  the  existing 
generation  scoff,  where  their  fathers  admired  and  reverenced  ;  and 
to  render  a  noble  and  humanizing  art  a  mere  convenience  for  ignorant 
pretension,  licensed  intrigue,  and  sordid  speculation. 

Macready's  now  historic  assault  upon  Bunn  had  brought 
the  controversy  to  a  climax.  On  April  29,  that  noble- 
hearted,  though  irascible  tragedian,  exasperated  beyond 
endurance,  had  entered  the  manager's  office,  and  "  dug  his 
fist "  2  well  into  the  offender.  Bunn  had  brought  an  action, 
in  which  Macready,  deeply  repentant — and  the  object  of 
much  popular  sympathy — had  allowed  judgment  to  go  by 
default.3  That  incident,  long  remembered,  somewhat  cleared 
the  air. 

It  was  to  such  subjects  of  London  theatrical  gossip  that 
Mrs.  Stirling  returned  from  the  provinces,  for  the  reopening 
of  the  Adelphi,  on  September  29.  With  C.  Pope,  from 

1  September  4,  1836. 

2  June   8,    1836.     The  last  straw  was  Bunn's  intimation  to  Macready 
that  he  had  announced  "  Richard  III  "  without  the  last  act.     Bunn  knew 
that  it  was  Macready's  best  act,  and  Macready  knew  that  he  knew. 

3  Macready'' s  Diary,  ii.  22. 


40       THE   STAGE   LIFE   OF   MRS.   STIRLING 

Leamington,  she  was  engaged  to  supply  the  places  of  Mrs. 
Honey  and  Mrs.  Keeley — other  members  of  the  company 
being  Mrs.  Yates,  John  Reeve,  Buckstone  and  Hemming. 
She  did  little,  at  first,  but  I  have  noted  an  appearance  in 
"  The  Doom  of  Marana,"  an  adaptation  of  Dumas's  "  La 
Chute  d'une  Ange  " — then  in  great  repute  among  Parisians — 
wherein  O.  Smith  enacted  "  The  Spirit  of  Evil,"  a  line  of 
business  in  which  he  had  no  rival.  When  the  young  actress's 
opportunity  did  come,  it  was  accompanied  by  one  of  those 
stage  misadventures  so  frequent  during  Yates 's  management 
of  the  Adelphi. 

The  play  was  "  Rosine,  or  am  I  a  Princess  ? "  All 
went  smoothly,  until  it  became  apparent  that  the  representa- 
tive of  the  Marquis  of  Gottenburg,  incapable  of  repeating 
what  the  author  had  set  down  for  him,  was  substituting 
his  own  improvisations,  described  by  The  Times  critic  as 
"  balderdash  and  slang."  These  impromptus,  of  course, 
paralysed  the  other  performers,  and  were  so  much  resented 
by  the  audience  that  manager  Yates  had  to  come  forward, 
with  a  promise  that  the  part  should  be  "  word-perfect  on  the 
morrow." 

Drunkenness,  in  those  days,  was  much  too  common  among 
actors.  John  Coleman,  in  his  memoir  of  Phelps,1  has  told 
us  how  often  the  tragedian  would  deplore  the  evil. 

Many  a  man  of  ability  went  headlong  to  the  devil,  thinking  it  a  sign 
of  genius  to  follow  the  pernicious  example  of  Cooke  and  Kean,  who 
not  only  ruined  their  own  lives  but  the  lives  of  many  others. 

Such  incidents,  however,  disconcerting  though  they  be 
at  the  moment,  can  be  turned  to  account  by  those  who 
are  wise  enough  to  make  use  of  them.  They  inculcate 
self-possession  and  restraint,  and  foster  an  unconquerable 
determination  to  succeed,  in  spite  of  difficulties  and  draw- 
backs. In  Paris,  not  long  since,  Etienne  Bourdelle,  the 
sculptor,  said  to  the  writer  :  "  Pour  Part  de  demain  il  nous 
faudra  de  longues  initiations."  This  is  true,  not  of  his 
great  art  alone,  but  of  all  art.  The  battle  against  drunken- 
ness was  a  part  of  those  initiations. 

Mrs.    Stirling's   own    initiatory    experiences    multiplied 

1  Phelps*  Memoirs,  p.  79. 


PROVINCES  AND   THE  ADELPHI  41 

fast.  Her  next  was  "  A  Flight  to  America,"  a  title  which, 
in  these  days,  has  a  modern  ring,  though  there  was  nothing 
particularly  novel  about  the  entertainment,  described  on 
the  play-bills  as  "  a  new  musical,  characteristic  olla-podrical 
extravaganza."  It  had  been  written  by  Leman  Rede,  for 
the  purpose  of  introducing,  or  rather  of  "  booming,"  Rice, 
the  original  "  Jim  Crow  " — hie  niger  est — 

They  may  talk  about  philosophy 

But  I'm  prepared  to  show 
'Tis  all  comprised  in  wheel  about 

And  jump  Jim  Crow. 

Turn  about  and  wheel  about,  and  dance  jus.t  so ; 
Turn  about  and  wheel  about,  and  jump  Jim  Crow. 

This  catchy  jingle,  by  Buckstone,  took  the  fancy  of  the 
town,  and  was  heard  everywhere  ;  for  Crow's  performance 
was  very  clever,  of  its  kind.  "  The  shuffling  gait,  the 
strange  whistle,  the  more  strange  laugh  could  never  have 
been  invented  by  Mr.  Rice."1 

As  for  Mrs.  Stirling,  putting  aside  what  dawning  aspiration 
she  may  have  had  towards  higher  class  work,  she  blacked 
her  pretty  face,  made  love  to,  and  was  courted  by,  "  Jim 
Crow,"  danced,  sang  negro  and  patter  songs,  in  the  then 
equivalent  for  rag-time,  and  did  all  these  things  with  a 
spirit  and  vivacity  that  won  much  admiration,  and  kept 
the  house  in  a  roar  of  laughter  from  beginning  to  end. 
"Sally  Snow,"  in  fact,  was  one  of  Mrs.  Stirling's  early  hits. 

Her  personation  is  inimitable,  and  we  doubt  if  there  be  any  actress 
now  in  London  who  can  furnish  so  original  a  portrait  of  the  negro 
character. 

Stirling  Coyne,  afterwards  Secretary  to  the  Dramatic 
Authors  Society,  was  then  writing  a  farce,  "  Humours  of  an 
Election,"  which  was  produced  at  the  Adelphi  on  January  9, 
1837,  when  John  Reeve  imitated  O'Connor  very  badly, 
and  Mrs.  Stirling,  in  the  part  of  "  Lucy  Contest,"  gave  early 
indication  of  her  chief  dramatic  fault — that  grew  as  years 
went  by — namely,  a  tendency  to  exaggeration. 

1  Examiner,  November  20,  1836. 


42       THE   STAGE  LIFE   OF   MRS.   STIRLING 

This  actress  [wrote  a  contemporary  critic]  is  a  lady  of  considerable 
talent,  who  takes  great  pains  with  her  parts,  but  she  is  at  times 
rather  given  to  over-act,  and  we  think  if  she  played  the  country  girl 
in  a  style  rather  more  subdued,  it  would  be  to  the  advantage  of  the 
character. 

A  month  later  she  played  once  more  with  Rice,  in  "  The 
Peacock  and  the  Crow,"  by  Parry,  a  piece  that  was  thoroughly 
hissed,  and  was  noteworthy  only  for  the  fact,  that  one  of 
her  stage  companions  was  the  eccentric  Tate  Wilkinson, 
author  of  those  rambling,  discursive  memoirs,  that,  loosely 
written  though  they  be,  throw  much  light  upon  stage  con- 
ditions of  the  day. 

February  brought  to  the  young  actress  some  "  comic 
business "  in  a  spectacle  "  Hussan  Pacha "  ;  and,  with 
"  Lady  Randolph  "  in  "  Douglas  " — a  poor  burlesque  by 
Leman  Rede,  in  which  she  "  wept  and  watered  her  geraniums 
with  all  the  lackadaisical  dignity  of  an  approved  heroine  of 
romance " — Mrs.  Stirling's  engagement  at  the  Adelphi 
came  to  an  end. 


CHAPTER    III 

NEW    STRAND    AND    ST.    JAMES'S 

1837-38 

First  appearances  at  the  New  Strand — Her  versatility  discovered — Parts 
written  to  exploit  it — Engaged  by  Braham  at  St.  James's — Over- 
coming authors' deficiencies — "  Angeline  "  and  "  "Tis  She" — A  stage 
dilemma — Bad  plays  and  dull  audiences — Goes  to  Garrick  Theatre, 
Whitechapel — Crisis  in  her  career — Sympathetic  press  criticism — 
Mrs.  Stirling  withdraws  from  the  stage — Condition  of  the  theatre 
in  London — Mrs.  Stirling  "  Gladstone's  first  love  " — Knowles  and 
Bulwer — Macready  at  Covent  Garden — The  "  Bunn  House  " — 
Plight  of  Drury  Lane — Mme.  Vestris  takes  Covent  Garden — 
Beginnings  of  drawing-room  comedy — Incompetent  authors  and 
players — The  Penny  Theatre  and  the  Saloon. 

MRS.  STIRLING'S  work  at  the  Adelphi  had  been  restricted,  in 
general,  to  parts  that  rose  little  above  low  comedy  or  the 
crudest  melodrama.  During  the  remainder  of  1837  she 
was  to  reveal  to  the  public,  to  the  critics,  and  perhaps  to 
herself,  a  greater  versatility,  and  a  capacity  to  advance  in  her 
profession. 

The  character  x  in  which  she  made  her  first  appearance 
at  the  New  Strand  gave  her  small  opportunity,  except  to 
show  animation  in  a  quarrel  scene  ;  but  the  role  that  followed 
— "  Mrs.  Mountjoy  "  in  "  The  Golden  Calf,"  another  play  by 
the  prolific  Jerrold — marks  a  stage,  as  being  one  of  the 
first  performances  in  which  she  blended  skilfully  humour 
with  pathos.2  Mrs.  Stirling  came  out  of  the  ordeal  with 
much  credit ;  the  breadth  of  her  talent  gained  recognition, 
and  her  manager  begins  at  once  to  produce  plays  written 
with  the  sole  object  of  exploiting  her  cleverness. 

"  Batchelor's  Buttons,"  for  instance — the  farce  which 
terminated,  for  that  year,  her  engagement  at  the  New  Strand 
— was  specially  written,  by  her  husband,  to  enable  her  to 

1  "  Fanny  Flittermouse "  in  "  The  Gallantie  Showman,"  by  Douglas 
Jerrold,  March  27,  1837. 

8  Sunday  Times,  April  30,  1837. 


44       THE   STAGE  LIFE   OF  MRS.   STIRLING 

show  her  versatility.  In  it  she  disported  herself  as  a  romping 
school-girl,  a  jockey,  a  sportsman,  and  a  chattering  maid- 
of-all-work.  As  the  "  sport  "— "  all  blood  and  no  bone  "— 
she  threw  into  the  part,  according  to  the  Idler,  a  sprightliness 
and  a  "  je  ne-sais-quoi,"  original  as  it  was  delightful.  Con- 
cerning her  two  previous  performances  the  same  critic  had 
let  himself  go. 

The  acting  of  Mrs.  Stirling  throughout  this  piece  is  perfection.  Her 
by-play  too  is  admirable;  she  never  lets  a  single  point  escape  her 
observation.  In  the  popular  burletta  of  "  Venus  in  Arms"  she  shines 
with,  if  possible,  greater  lustre.  What  a  handsome  officer  she  makes  ! 
how  genteel  her  bearing!  how  amiable  her  little  failings!  how  en- 
chanting the  symmetry  of  her  person. 

Here  evidently  was  an  ingenuous  critic  hard  hit ! 

Her  willingness,  at  twenty-four  years  old,  already,  on 
occasion,  outran  her  physical  strength.  The  summer  found 
her  severely  ill,  though  by  August  she  was  well  enough 
for  Braham  l  to  engage  her  for  the  comedy  lead  at  the  St. 
James's,  where  she  made  her  first  appearance,  on  Septem- 
ber 29,  as  "  Amelia,"  in  "  The  Young  Widow."  This  was 
followed,  in  October — I  am  omitting  minor  performances — 
by  "  H£16ise  de  Mirancourt,"  in  "  Natural  Magic,"  an  immoral 
and  incongruous  production,  written  solely  for  the  purpose 
of  allowing  Mrs.  Stirling  to  appear  first  as  an  old  countess, 
and  then  as  an  artless  girl  of  eighteen.  Only  her  spirited 
acting  saved  the  piece  from  utter  damnation  on  the  first 
night.  The  curtain  fell  amid  mingled  hisses  and  applause, 
and  The  Times  critic,  on  the  following  day,  complained  that 
Mrs.  Stirling,  in  her  effort  to  get  contrast,  had  overdone  her 
part,  and,  as  the  old  woman,  had  "  faltered  and  croaked 
to  a  most  unpleasant  degree." 

"  The  Miller's  Maid  "  pointed  again  to  her  gradual  transi- 
tion from  the  romps,  hoydens,  and  pert  waiting-maids 

1  Braham  had  made  his  first  London  appearance  at  the  Royalty  in 
1787,  with  a  song,  "The  Tired  Soldier."  He  played  in  almost  every  town 
in  England,  and  many  abroad,  and  was  generally  held  to  be  the  best 
tenor  singer,  and  the  worst  actor,  in  Europe.  Time,  as  it  impaired  his 
voice,  improved  his  acting.  In  a  cathedral  he  was  always  magnificent ; 
on  the  stage  could  occasionally  be  so.  His  voice — full  tenor,  with  light 
baritone  quality  in  lower  tones — was  of  extraordinary  compass,  power, 
flexibility,  and  sweetness. 


NEW   STRAND   AND   ST.  JAMES'S  45 

of  burletta,  to  genuine  domestic  drama  ;  and  "  Angeline  "  x 
though  in  itself  nothing  at  all,  instanced  her  growing  power 
to  overcome  an  author's  deficiencies,  and  to  win  a  minor 
triumph  of  personality.  One  writer,  at  least,  saw  in  her 
performance  "  hope  that  with  a  little  practice  she  will  become 
as  successful  in  delineating  pathos  and  deep  feeling,  as  she 
now  is  eminent  in  the  gayer  walks  of  farce  and  comedy."2 
The  Times  8  wrote  as  follows  : 

A  very  meagre  little  burletta  last  night  met  with  great  success, 
on  account  of  the  excellent  acting  of  Mrs.  Stirling.  Plot  there  was 
none  ;  incident  there  was  none  ;  in  the  dialogue  there  was  nothing  ; 
and  yet  by  the  mere  telling  of  a  pathetic  tale,  and  on  the  whole  by 
very  judicious  performance,  Mrs.  Stirling  contrived  to  render  the 
piece  interesting.  We  have  never  seen  this  lady  to  such  advantage  ; 
in  comic  parts  she  is  often  unpleasantly  vivacious,  and  bordering  on 
caricature  ;  her  forte  is  evidently  the  domestic  serious. 

These  successes,  backed  by  his  leading  lady's  willingness, 
apparently  led  Braham  to  suppose  that  she  could  do  any- 
thing ;  for  he  now  proceeds  to  cast  her  as  an  Italian  brigand, 
in  the  name  part  of  "  Pascal  Bruno,"  a  melodrama  from 
Hook's  version  of  Dumas.  Why  the  role  of  a  weather- 
hardened  hero,  who  makes  the  rock  his  bed,  and  the  sky 
his  counterpane — the  sort  of  thing  that  Wallack  could  then 
have  done  to  perfection — was  entrusted  to  a  pretty  and 
fragile  young  woman  of  twenty-four,  only  Braham  himself 
knew.  The  result,  of  course,  was  complete  failure.  "  Mrs. 
Stirling  looked  like  a  toy  brigand,  and  the  fighting  scene 
was  laughably  absurd."4 

This  was  bad  enough ;  but  worse  was  to  come.  On 
February  6,  1838,  the  unhappy  lady  was  induced  to  play 
the  lead  in  another  miserable  farrago  of  rubbish,  "  'Tis 
She,  or  Maid,  Wife,  and  Widow,"  in  which  Wright,  the 
low  comedian,  gave  an  offensive  imitation  of  Meadows, 
and  rendered  himself  merely  ridiculous.  According  to  one 
critic,  the  only  commendable  incident  in  the  play  was  the 

1  November  27,  1837.     The  part  turned  upon  the  sorrows  of  a  French 
girl,  whose  lover,  supposed  dead  in  battle,  returns  just  in  time  to  save  her. 
8  Sunday  Times,  December  3,  1837. 

3  November  28,  1837. 

4  Sunday  Times,  December  31,  1837. 


46       THE   STAGE  LIFE   OF   MRS.   STIRLING 

swiftness  with  which  Mrs.  Stirling  changed  her  dresses ; 
but  this  need  for  haste  nearly  brought  about  a  fiasco  on 
the  first  night,  when  "  She,"  after  appearing  as  the  maid, 
went  straight  into  widow's  weeds,  and  got  her  cue  for  "  Wife  " 
before  the  mistake  was  discovered.  Here  was  a  dilemma 
indeed  !  but  Webster  proved  equal  to  the  occasion.  He 
walked  straight  on,  and  while  the  hustled  heroine  was 
transferring  herself  back  to  the  married  state,  tackled  the 
only  other  occupant  of  the  stage — one  Gardener,  who  was 
playing  a  waiter — and  held  him  in  an  improvised  humorous 
conversation,  so  cleverly  done  that,  when  Mrs.  Stirling, 
at  last,  came  on,  in  wifely  costume,  two -thirds  of  the  audience 
were  unaware  that  there  had  been  any  departure  from  the 
book.  It  was  a  fine  example  of  what  experience  and  self- 
possession  can  do  upon  the  stage. 

St.  James's  Theatre,  in  this  year  of  grace,  1838,  had 
acquired  a  reputation,  well  deserved,  for  producing  dramas 
destitute  of  plot,  character,  or  dialogue,  of  which  "  'Tis 
She  "  was  the  most  flagrant  example.  We  may  be  certain, 
therefore,  that,  despite  the  encouragement  afforded  to  her 
by  the  Examiner  l — "  Mrs.  Stirling  actually  wakes  up  the 
dullest  of  all  dull  audiences  that  nightly  assemble  here  2 — 
a  feat  that  we  had  considered  a  moral  impossibility  " — 
the  young  actress  must  often  have  returned  at  night  to 
her  house  in  the  Adelphi,3  thoroughly  dissatisfied,  and  in 
grievous  doubt  as  to  what  her  future  course  should  be. 
Neither  stage  career,  nor  home  life,  was  fulfilling  her 
heart's  desire. 

This  uncertainty  in  her  own  mind,  as  to  her  true 
bent,  was  reflected  in  the  press.  The  Sunday  Times, 
for  example,  reviewing  the  St.  James's  company,  wrote  of 
its  leading  lady: 

Her  forte  appears  to  be  in  serious  drama,  for  which  her  person  is 
admirably  adapted  ;  her  versatility  is  great,  and  she  is  too  good  an 
actress  to  fail  in  anything.  Her  fault  is  to  do  too  much,  a  fault  she 
should  amend  speedily,  for  it  is  one  likely  to  grow  upon  her. 

1  November  27,  1837. 

2  On   February    16,    1838,   the  Duke   of   Cambridge   saw  her  in    "The 
Black  Domino,"  and  expressed  himself  as  highly  delighted. 

9  She  was  then  living  at  No.  13  John  Street,  Adelphi. 


NEW   STRAND   AND   ST.   JAMES'S  47 

During  that  same  month,  March  1838,  she  left  the  St. 
James's  and  played  for  a  few  weeks — mostly  in  revivals — 
at  the  Garrick  Theatre,  Leman  Street,  Whitechapel,  acting 
"  'Tis  She,"  for  her  own  benefit,  on  March  20,  when  O.  Smith, 
Hammond,  and  other  popular  favourites  appeared  for 
her.  This  short  season  was  no  great  success,  for  the  Garrick 
had  fallen  upon  evil  days,  being  unable  to  withstand  the 
competition  of  two  other  rival  houses,  the  Pavilion,  and  the 
"  City,"  or  "  Norton  Folgate."  Her  fortunes  were  going 
from  bad  to  worse. 

That  Mrs.  Stirling,  at  this  period  of  her  life,  first  doubted 
her  wisdom  in  seeking  a  stage  career,  seems  very  probable. 
Not  that  she  considered  herself  a  complete  failure.  Her 
difficulties,  rather,  were  begotten  of  disillusionment,  un- 
certainty of  direction,  and  the  uncontrolled  impulses  of  her 
own  character.  Well  intentioned,  but  without  knowledge 
of  the  world,  with  more  intolerance  than  patience  in  her 
disposition,  and  possessing  no  wise  counsellor  to  whom 
she  might  turn  for  guidance,  every  circumstance,  in  those 
days,  seemed  to  be  conspiring  to  thwart  her.  Her  very 
enthusiasm,  her  intense  desire  to  please,  even  the  extra- 
ordinary versatility,  that  swung  her  always  between  tragedy 
and  comedy — all  these  virtues  the  untowardness  of  the 
time  made  vices.  In  common  with  the  futility  of  her  stage- 
work,  in  those  days,  they  clouded  her  judgment,  and  obscured 
the  goal  at  which  she  must  aim. 

Several  contemporary  writers  are  sympathetically  con- 
scious of  the  situation.  In  Actors  by  Daylight,1  for  example, 
we  read  : 

As  an  actress,  we  fear,  she  now  stands  in  a  dangerous  position. 
It  is  her  infirmity  to  possess  an  overflow  of  animal  spirits,  and  a  great 
tendency  to  over-act  every  part  entrusted  to  her  care,  caused  by  her 
own  desire  to  please.  She  should  strive  to  dispossess  herself  of  this, 
for,  if  persisted  in,  it  may  prove  fatal  to  her  reputation.  Her  serious 
and  comic  capabilities  are  so  nicely  balanced  that  we  cannot  ascribe 
a  vast  superiority  to  either.  Were  she  to  turn  her  attention  to  the 
legitimate  comedy,  she  would,  in  our  opinion,  acquire  a  chaster  and 
more  natural  style,  which  would  render  her  the  most  entertaining 
actress  on  the  stage.  At  present  she  is  content  to  enjoy  a  transitory 
fame  that  will  leave  no  trace  to  tell  that  such  an  actress  ever  lived. 

1  March  24,  1838. 


48       THE   STAGE  LIFE   OF   MRS.   STIRLING 

On  the  other  hand,  in  "  Rosalind,"  "  Violente,"  and  other  parts  she 
would  have  no  equal,  and  at  the  same  time  increase  her  income,  and 
pass  her  name  to  posterity  with  those  of  Clive,  Gibbs,  Jordan,  etc. 

Those  words  contain  the  truth  of  the  matter :  their 
advice  was  sound  ;  and  they  voice  again  the  same  danger 
that  the  Editor  of  the  Dramatic  Magazine  had  warned  her 
against,  in  June  of  the  year  before. 

As  an  actress  Mrs.  Stirling  is  at  all  times  pleasing  and  vivacious, 
and  would,  by  a  rigid  schooling,  and  the  temperate  exercise  of  the 
intellect  she  possesses,  achieve  a  steady  course,  half-way  between 
a  Jordan  and  an  Orger,  without  the  danger  of  falling  either  into  Scylla 
or  Charybdis.  Her  greatest  faults  are  impatience,  and  an  over- 
anxiety  to  please  her  audience,  by  which  she  falls  sometimes  short 
of  grace,  and  sometimes  of  ideality.  These  errors  have  occasionally 
placed  her  in  a  wrong  position  with  an  injudicious  auditory,  who 
have  attributed  them  to  coarseness,  or  a  want  of  refinement.  Such, 
however,  is  not  the  case,  as  in  her  disposition  and  ordinary  pursuits 
she  is  directly  the  reverse  of  both.  Hitherto  her  best  performances 
have  been  "  Victorine  "  and  "  Grace  Huntley  "  in  the  serious  ;  "  The 
Georgian"  in  "The  Arab's  Leap";  "The  Petticoat  Colonel,"  and 
"  Sally  Snow  "  in  "  The  Flight  to  America." 

Whether  these  criticisms  met  her  eye,  and  influenced  her 
decision,  I  do  not  know.  Probably  they  did ;  and  the 
sequel  is  that  in  the  Sunday  Times,  of  June  24,  appeared 
an  announcement  to  the  effect  that  "Mr.  Edward  Stirling, 
the  actress's  husband,  having,  it  is  said,  procured  a  govern- 
ment situation,  has  withdrawn  her  altogether  from  the  public 
stage." l  So  she  vanishes  for  a  time  from  the  public  gaze, 
but  not  from  the  hearts  of  many  who  had  seen  her.  It 
was  to  this  period  that  W.  E.  Gladstone2  referred  when — 
in  1884 — while  lunching  with  Miss  Mary  Anderson  during 
the  run  of  "  Romeo  and  Juliet  "  at  the  Lyceum,  he  said 
to  her :  "  You  will  be  seeing  Fanny  Stirling  to-night. 
Please  tell  her  from  me  that  she  was  my  first  love.  No 
harm  to  tell  her  so  now." 

There,  in  temporary  retirement,  we  will  leave  her,  while 

1  The  couple  separated,  I  think,  about  this  time.  They  remained  for 
years  on  terms  more  or  less  friendly ;  but  they  lived  together  no  more. 

*  W.  E.  Gladstone,  born  December  29,  1809,  was  then  nearly  thirty. 
He  married  in  1839. 


NEW   STRAND  AND   ST.  JAMES'S  49 

we  glance  again,  for  a  moment,  at  the  general  condition 
of  affairs  theatrical  in  London. 

These  were  not  particularly  exhilarating.  Of  the  men 
then  writing  for  the  stage,  two — Sheridan  Knowles  and 
Edward  Bulwer — stood  high  above  all  others,  with  Knowles 
easily  first.  His  more  flexible,  franker,  and  heartier  style, 
his  warmth  and  generosity  of  manner,  both  in  light  and 
serious  work,  gave  him  an  immense  advantage  over  his 
rival,  who  was  altogether  of  the  classic  school  in  his  stiff, 
pompous,  and  cold  artificiality.  Both  men  were  now  at 
the  height  of  their  performance.  Knowles,  some  eighteen 
months  before,  had  produced,  at  the  Haymarket,  with 
great  success,  his  clever  comedy,  "  The  Love  Chase,"  in 
which  Mrs.  Glover  and  Mrs.  Nisbett,  the  two  foremost 
comediennes  of  the  day,  had  played  "  The  Widow  "  and 
"  Constance."  On  February  24,  1838,  the  name  of  Edward 
Lytton  Bulwer  was  first  announced,  in  the  Covent  Garden 
play-bills,  as  the  author  of  "  The  Lady  of  Lyons  " — Macready, 
then  managing  Covent  Garden,  being  the  first  representative 
of  "Claude  Melnotte,"  "The  Adventurer,"1  classed  by 
Hollingshead — with  the  same  author's  "Evelyn"  in 
"  Money  " — as  the  two  champion  cads  of  dramatic  literature, 
which,  on  the  whole,  they  were  not. 

Macready,  nevertheless,  was  doing  good  work  at  Covent 
Garden,  by  encouraging  the  best  playwrights  we  had,  and  by 
reviving  and  re-establishing  our  national  drama .  The  abolition 
of  claques,  the  issue  of  truthful  play-bills,  and  insistence 
upon  other  much-needed  reforms,  were  all  acts  of  good  ex- 
ample to  managers  in  general,  and  to  his  old  opponent,  Bunn, 
in  particular,  under  whose  direction  the  other  patent  theatre, 
Drury  Lane,  was  drifting  fast  on  to  the  rocks.  Learning 
nothing  from  Macready's  successes,  nor  from  his  own  failures, 
he  continued  to  anger  the  more  honest  section  of  the  public 
by  putting  on  rubbish,  and  by  printing  lying  puffs  concerning 
unworthy  shows. 

More  and  more  savage  became  the  comments  of  the 
press.  The  Examiner  had  written  :  2 

1  Bulwer    suggested    this    title,    but   Macready    would    not    have    it. 
Macready's  Diary,  ii.  101,  102. 
8  November  27,  1837. 


50       THE   STAGE  LIFE   OF   MRS.   STIRLING 

"  The  wonder  of  wonders  turned  out  to  be  a  gross  cheat 
— Si  fraud  too  miserable  and  disgusting  to  escape  exposure, 
even  in  the  '  Bunn  House.'  "  The  Sunday  Times  took  to 
writing  of  the  national  theatre  as  the  "  National  Nuisance." 
Drury  Lane,  in  fact,  was  fast  becoming  a  mere  shilling  show, 
and  haunt  of  the  riff-raff — a  joke,  when  it  was  not  a  scandal. 
The  value  of  the  shares  had  dropped  almost  to  nothing, 
when,  on  April  25,  1839,  that  master  of  magniloquent  and 
florid  rhetoric,  the  famous  auctioneer,  George  Robins,  offered 
for  sale  three  lots,  each  consisting  of  five  £100  shares  in 
the  theatre,  and  a  life-admission,  which  latter,  as  Robins 
remarked,  with  unintentional  irony,  "  could  be  appro- 
priated to  a  child." 

The  first  lot  was  knocked  down  "  to  a  family-looking 
gentleman,"  for  thirty-five  guineas ;  the  other  two  went 
for  thirty  guineas  each.  At  a  meeting  of  the  Drury  Lane 
shareholders,  held  on  July  24,  it  was  announced  that 
the  debts  were  £17,706,  and  the  amounts  on  the  credit 
side,  to  meet  them,  £17,704,  of  which  £5,000  were  due  from 
a  Captain  Polhill,  and  £12,999  from  Mr.  Bunn.  That  sum, 
we  suppose,  was  not  forthcoming,  and  Bunn,  unlamented, 
soon  after  left  Drury  Lane,  to  undertake  the  mismanage- 
ment of  St.  James's  ! 

On  July  16,  1839,  Macready  terminated  his  season  at 
Covent  Garden,  amid  volleys  of  applause,  that,  with  the 
exception  of  John  Kemble's  farewell,  and  Kean's  return 
from  America,  had  not  been  equalled,  for  spontaneity  and 
enthusiasm,  within  the  memory  of  living  man.1  The 
theatre  was  at  once  transferred  to  Mme.  Vestris  (Mrs. 
Charles  Mathews),  who,  with  her  husband,  had  been  for 
some  years  at  the  Olympic.  This  change  to  Covent  Garden 
soon  brought  financial  disaster  upon  them  both. 

These  few  notes,  concerning  the  fortunes  of  the  two 
principal  houses  at  this  time,  will  give  some  idea  of  the 
chaotic  state  of  affairs  at  the  top.  In  the  middle — among 

1  "  When  I  had  changed  my  dress  I  went  before  the  curtain,  and  amidst 
shoutings  and  wavings  of  hats  and  handkerchiefs  by  the  whole  audience 
standing  up,  the  stage  was  literally  covered  with  wreaths,  bouquets,  and 
bunches  of  laurel."  Macready's  Diary,  ii.  147. 

"  A  hundred  garlands  were  whirled  at  his  feet."  Sunday  Times,  July  21, 
1839. 


NEW  STRAND  AND   ST.  JAMES'S  51 

what  had  been  called,  hitherto,  "  the  minor  theatres  " — 
things  were  not  very  much  better.  Managers  were  every- 
where feeling  their  way,  and  only  at  the  Olympic,  perhaps, 
had  a  distinct  advance  been  made.  There  Charles  Mathews, 
a  newcomer,  hampered  by  no  respect  at  all,  either  for 
dramatic  conventions  or  for  theatrical  tradition,  had  begun 
to  create  a  new  form  of  comedy — as  Planche  describes  it 
— which,  in  some  sort,  held  the  mirror  up  to  a  nature  that 
came  between  "the  utter  inanity  of  the  walking  gentleman, 
and  the  artificial  exuberance  of  the  first  light  comedian." 
There,  too,  under  Mme.  Vestris,  had  been  introduced 
another  reform,  that  soon  was  to  spread  to  many  theatres. 
Stage  drawing-rooms  were  realistically  fitted  up,  to  resemble 
what  they  purported  to  be. 

Realistic  settings  have  never,  we  suppose,  wrought 
much  good  to  the  drama  ;  but  this  small  beginning  of  a  truer 
realism  is  worth  noting,  because  it  helped  to  make  possible, 
and  so,  in  measure,  led  up  to,  the  beginning  of  drawing-room 
comedy,  as  we  understand  it  to-day.  By  the  help  of  such 
primitive  aids,  we  reached  the  cup-and-saucer  drama,  of 
the  Robertson  kind,  and,  through  that,  the  fully  developed 
comedy  of  the  eighties  and  after. 

In  the  main,  however,  the  stage  of  the  later  thirties 
remained  radically  crude  and  superficial.  Charlatans,  both 
literary  and  histrionic,  obtained  a  hearing  not  easily 
accounted  for,  except  on  the  admission  that  the  average 
manager  of  the  day  did  not  know  his  business.  The  con- 
temporary press  gives  some  amusing  examples  of  strange 
happenings.  At  the  Haymarket,  in  December  1837,  was 
produced  a  domestic  drama,  by  one  Frederic  Lawrence,  con- 
cerning which  the  Examiner  1  comments  : 

It  caused  roars  of  laughter  and  great  amusement,  though  not 
the  sort  of  amusement  the  author  had  in  mind — if  he  had  such  a  thing 
as  a  mind  about  him,  which  we  rather  doubt.  Of  all  the  insults  ever 
offered  to  the  understanding  of  an  audience,  this  is  the  greatest.  The 
production  of  such  wretched,  despicable  trash  is  disgraceful  to  Mr. 
Webster,  and  most  unworthy  treatment  of  the  clever  actors  and 
actresses  who  are  compelled  to  utter  the  mawkish  absurdities  set 

1  Examiner,  December  17,  1837.  John  Forster  had  been  appointed 
chief  critic  of  the  Examiner  in  1833.  He  was  its  editor  from  1847  until 
the  end  of  1855,  or  early  1856. 


52       THE   STAGE  LIFE   OF   MRS.   STIRLING 

down  for  them.  "  What's  in  a  name  ?  "  observes  Mr.  Frederic  Law- 
rence indignantly.  "  Everything.  Nothing  can  be  done  without 
one."  We  know  one,  at  all  events,  by  which  nothing  will  ever  be 
done,  and  that  is  the  name  of  Mr.  Frederic  Lawrence. 

There  were  also  aspiring  actors  about,  who  could  match 
even  the  authors  in  incompetence.  At  Drury  Lane,  on 
December  2,  1838,  was  given  a  performance  of  "  Romeo  and 
Juliet,"  which,  of  its  kind,  has  never  been  repeated  upon 
the  London  stage.  The  Examiner,  this  time,  is  too  mirthful 
to  storm. 

We  can  no  more  find  it  in  our  heart  to  be  angry  with  Maddocks 
(the  "  Romeo  ")  than  could  his  audience  of  Tuesday.  Perhaps  there 
never  was  such  an  assemblage  of  merry  faces  as  that  which  greeted 
his  performance.  It  was  Hogarth's  laughing  party  realized.  The 
house  was  in  a  roar.  A  party  of  fat  gentlemen  in  the  pit  cried  out 
repeatedly  that  it  was  too  much,  and  one — the  fattest  among  them — 
implored  that  Maddocks  might  be  taken  away,  as  he  would  be  the 
death  of  him.  But  the  play  went  on,  and  boxes,  pit,  and  galleries 
enjoyed  it  as  one  man.  .  .  .  None  but  Maddocks  can  be  Maddocks' 
parallel. 

Violent  as  were  the  contrasts  then  in  the  upper  realms 
of  the  drama,  the  conditions  of  its  under- world  were  equally 
strange  and  unstable.  Everywhere  to-day  we  hear  com- 
plaints of  the  cinemas,  and  of  their  evil  influence  upon  the 
morals  of  children.  The  cinema  of  1838  was  the  "Penny 
Theatre " — an  unlicensed  house,  largely  supported  by 
children  of  the  poorer  classes,  who  commonly  obtained 
the  necessary  coppers  by  filching,  and  selling,  objects  from 
the  neighbouring  shops.  Loud  rose  the  clamour  of  Poplar 
tradesmen  against  the  proprietors  of  that  "  dilapidated 
barn" — the  local  play-house — who,  to  the  gross  encourage- 
ment of  petty  larceny,  were  presenting  "  The  Bravo's  Bow," 
or  "  The  Midnight  Meeting." 

A  certain  Kingsland  Road  gaff  offered  its  patrons 
"  Macbeth,"  acted  through  in  twenty  minutes — provided  that 
a  raid  by  the  police,  at  the  instigation  of  the  patent  theatres, 
did  not  bring  about  an  even  swifter  conclusion.  Rat  cliff  e 
Highway  possessed,  by  way  of  play-house,  "  a  deplorable 
underground  hole  "  ;  and  Clare  Market  had  another  such  ; 
though  the  largest  of  them  all  was  in  Newton  Street, 


NEW  STRAND  AND   ST.  JAMES'S  53 

Holborn,  where  business  was  carried  on  almost  as  at  a  licensed 
theatre.  Tickets  could  be  purchased  at  the  neighbouring 
shops,  and  three  or  four  performances  nightly  gave  you  a 
choice  between  "  Rosina,"  "The  Nabob,"  or  "Mabel's 
Curse,"  to  which,  being  adult,  you  might  bring  your  pipe, 
and  a  hot  potato,  to  warm  you  at  the  Muses'  feet.  Quite 
recently,  delving  into  the  archives  of  Messrs.  Strahan,  of 
New  Cut,  I  discovered  play-bills  of  "  Exhibition  Rooms  " — 
as  this  Newton  Street  house  was  named — dated  September 
1839  (probably),  and  offering,  as  piece  de  resistance, 
"Selections  from  a  Work  entitled,  'The  Wild  Women  of 
Alsace,'  to  be  followed  by  4  The  Murderer's  Haunt.'  " 

Yet  even  these  gaffs  had  their  uses.  Beneath  their 
ugliness  lies  hid  the  beauty  of  a  great  art.  The  toad  is 
jewel-mouthed.  Within  such  dens,  be  it  remembered,  famous 
players,  like  Toole  and  Robson,  first  acquired  their  love 
for  the  stage. 

One  degree  only  above  the  gaffs  were  the  "  saloons," 
otherwise  the  "  long  rooms  "  of  ancient  Elizabethan  taverns, 
now  glorified  in  name,  and  provided  with  a  stage  and  scenery. 
They  flourished  exceedingly  during  the  thirties,  and  endured 
until  the  Theatres  Act,  before  mentioned,  compelled  a 
radical  change. 

Such,  in  brief,  was  theatrical  London,  now  about  to 
welcome  Mrs.  Stirling  back  once  more  to  its  boards. 


CHAPTER    IV 

LYCEUM,    DRURY    LANE,   AND   OLYMPIC 

1839-40 

Mrs.  Stirling  returns  to  the  stage — "  Lady  Mary  Montagu  "  at  the  Lyceum 
— Recites  a  prologue — Penley's  failure — She  goes  to  Hammond  at 
Drury  Lane — Contemporary  pen-pictures  of  Mrs.  Stirling — Appear- 
ance and  Character — First  appearance  at  Drury  Lane,  as  "  Beatrice  " 
— Her  failure  in  the  part — Hammond's  deficiencies  as  manager — 
"Woman's  Trials" — "  Cupid's  Diplomacy  " — Takes  up  Mrs.  Glover's 
part  in  "  The  Ladies'  Club  " — Mrs.  Glover — Mrs.  Stirling  her 
legitimate  successor. 

RETIREMENT  at  twenty-six  from  an  alluring  profession,  for 
which  one  has  unusual  aptitudes,  to  a  discordant  home  life, 
is  a  change  not  likely  to  be  permanent.  In  Mrs.  Stirling's 
case  it  lasted  until  the  following  spring,  when  she  thought 
better  of  her  too  precipitate  decision,  and,  on  April  1,  1839, 
returned  to  the  West  End,  there  to  take  a  prominent  part 
in  the  reopening  of  the  Lyceum — hitherto  known  as  The 
English  Opera  House — under  Penley's  management. 

The  play  itself — "  Lady  Mary  Wortley  Montagu,  or 
Courtship  and  Matrimony  in  1712  " — is  of  little  account ; 
but  the  occasion  is  interesting,  as  being  one  of  the  earliest 
instances  in  which  Mrs.  Stirling  exercised  another  of  her 
many  talents — that  of  reciter. 

There  exists,  I  believe,  a  stage  tradition  to  the  effect 
that  a  good  reader  and  reciter  is  usually  a  poor  actor.  Be 
that  as  it  may,  'tis  certain  that  many  modern  players,  of 
both  sexes,  are  ineffective  speakers,  especially  of  verse. 
Mrs.  Stirling,  however,  possessed  both  gifts,  as  managers 
were  already  discovering.  On  this  occasion  we  find  her 
speaking,  before  the  curtain,  "  with  much  taste  and  spirit," 
a  rhymed  prologue,  from  which — for  the  light  it  throws 
upon  her  retirement,  and  upon  stage  methods  of  her  day, 
rather  than  for  intrinsic  merit — I  give  some  extracts  here. 

54 


LYCEUM,  DRURY  LANE,  AND   OLYMPIC     55 

The  first  of  April,  well ;    how  very  queer, 
Of  all  the  days  throughout  the  running  year 
Our  new  lessee  upon  that  one  should  fix, 
Which  law  and  custom  set  aside  for  tricks. 

There  follow  more  lines  respecting  the  lessee,  and  recent 
provincial  experiences  of  members  of  the  company,  most 
of  whom  were  now  venturing  for  the  first  time  upon  the 
metropolis.  The  rhymer  continues  : 

Besides,  he's  got,  to  meet  theatric  strife, 

A  London  pilot,  aided  by  his  wife  ; 

It  might  be  better  too  for  all  your  houses, 

If  wives  could  still  be  managed  by  their  spouses. 

Perhaps,  good  folks,  you'll  deem  it  strange  that  one 

Who  late  proclaimed  her  drama  days  were  done, 

In  mimic  scene  again  should  court  the  praise 

Which  formed  her  best  delight  of  other  days  ; 

Let  women's  folly,  madness,  or  caprice, 

Rise  to  your  minds  and  bid  your  wonder  cease  ; 

And  never  for  one  moment  deem  it  strange 

That  woman  claims  her  privilege  to  change. 

For  my  return,  if  you  should  ask  the  cause, 

O !  'twas  my  yearning  for  your  kind  applause  ; 

For  still  I  own,  with  gratitude  and  pleasure, 

Your  "  handy-work  "  produced  my  greatest  treasure. 

So  much  for  self ;    and  now  for  our  lessee. 

On  you  he  trusts  ;    "  to  be  or  not  to  be," 

To-night  no  foreign  singers  strain  their  throats, 

And  change  for  English  gold  their  foreign  notes  ; 

To  blushing  belles  and  to  applauding  beaux 

No  foreign  dancers  here  their  legs  expose, 

And  they  with  pas  and  pirouette  can  make 

At  least  a  guinea  every  step  they  take. 

No  ponderous  giant  lengthens  out  our  play — 

No  dwarfish  fly  on  ceiling  wends  his  way  ; 

No  prodigies  our  nightly  bills  declare  ; 

No  classic  Crow,  nor  e'en  a  Bayadere. 

No  monkies  chatter,  and  do  all  they  can 

To  show  how  very  like  they  are  to  man  ; 

Yet  without  brutes  in  our  dramatic  corps, 

We  hope  t'  indulge  the  audience  with  a  roar  ; 

Not  that  of  lions  which  a  dread  imparts, 

But  roars  of  laughter  coming  from  your  hearts  ; 

We  trust  you'll  find  our  English  flag  unfurling, 

Our  pieces  current,  and  our  actors  sterling.1 

1  The  Bill  of  Astley's  Royal  Amphitheatre,  for  that  night,  comprised 
"The  Victories  of  Edward    the    Black  Prince,  or  The  Battle  Field,"  to 


56       THE   STAGE  LIFE   OF  MRS.   STIRLING 

The  adventures  of  "  Lady  Mary  "  as  a  foot-pad,  holding 
up  her  sexagenarian  follower  upon  Hounslow  Heath,  though 
carried  off  with  much  spirit,  are  not  worth  dwelling  upon 
to-day.  The  interest  is  in  the  sequel,  affording  further 
evidence  of  the  unscrupulousness  of  managers  of  the  day, 
and  the  levity,  or  heartlessness,  with  which  some  of  them 
would  treat  players  in  their  employ. 

This  case  of  the  Lyceum,  under  Penley,  was  an  example. 
London  was  then,  as  it  is  to-day,  the  goal  of  every  pro- 
vincial actor.  He  looked  to  opportunity  in  the  capital,  as 
his  chief  hope  of  high  attainment  in  the  profession.  Penley, 
a  provincial  manager  of  experience  and  good  repute,  had 
induced  a  number  of  actors  and  actresses — among  whom 
were  Addison  and  Creswick — to  throw  up  lucrative  engage- 
ments at  Glasgow,  Newcastle,  Bath,  and  other  provincial 
towns,  and  to  accompany  him  to  the  Lyceum.  They  would 
naturally  suppose  that  he  had  brought  with  him  the  where- 
withal to  tide  his  company  over  any  initial  failure.  In 
fact,  he  was  merely  gambling  upon  the  chance  of  success. 
After  eleven  nights'  performance  five  nights'  salary  only 
were  paid,  and  the  manager  was  reduced  to  the  expedient 
of  throwing  the  stage  open  to  the  audience  at  the  end  of 
the  second  piece,  and  giving  a  concert  a  la  Musard.  Much 
distress  resulted  to  the  players,  who,  with  the  one  exception 
of  the  leading  lady,  were  unknown  in  London,  and  whose 
provincial  posts  were  already  filled. 

For  Mrs.  Stirling  it  was  a  disappointing  return  to  public 
work ;  and  one  is  not  surprised  that  she  seems  to  have  done 
little  during  the  following  summer.  In  the  autumn,  however, 
came  a  better  engagement.  She  was  induced  by  W.  J. 
Hammond,  late  manager  of  the  Strand,  to  follow  him  to 
Drury  Lane,  now  vacated  by  Bunn.1  Before  accompanying 
her  there,  let  us  see  how  the  young  actress,  now  in 

be  followed  by  Mr.  Van  Amburgh  in  his  extraordinary  performance  with 
the  new  trained  lions  and  other  animals.  In  the  circle— M.  Baptiste 
Loisset's  celebrated  Equestrian  Company  of  French  and  German  riders. 

At  St.  James's  the  bill  included  "  Schreyer's  celebrated  troupe  of 
monkeys,  dogs,  etc.,"  concerning  which  the  Examiner  wrote  :  "  Our  only 
desire  throughout  is  to  see  the  exhibitor  and  the  monkeys  change  places. 
We  think  we  could  then  enjoy  the  thing." 

1  The  writer  in  Tallis's  Magazine  states  that  she  signed  for  three  years, 
iu  order  to  get  the  benefits  of  the  Pensions  Fund. 


LYCEUM,   DRURY   LANE,   AND   OLYMPIC     57 

the    full    bloom     of     matured    youth,    appeared    to    con- 
temporary eyes. 

The  following  passages,  more  familiar  than  dignified, 
reveal  something  of  her  personality,  and  give  us  a  glimpse 
of  the  woman's  character,  and  of  her  inclinations  in  private 
life.  They  are  from  the  Dramatic  Magazine,  June  1837, 
and  Actors  by  Daylight,  March  1838,  already  borrowed  from 
in  previous  chapters. 

In  person  Mrs.  Sterling  is  about  the  middle  stature,  with  a  figure 
approaching,  from  the  waist  upward,  to  harmony  and  fair  proportion. 
Her  foot  and  ankle  were  fabricated  for  a  larger  structure,  and  do 
not  exactly  assimilate  with  other  adjacent  beauties.  Her  teeth  are 
white  and  regular,  and  are  set  within  two  ruby  lips,  that  even  an 
anchorite  might  sigh  to  hear  confessions  from.  Her  eyes  are  small 
and  dark,  but  vivid  in  their  expression,  and  sweetly  penetrating  in 
their  glances.  She  seldom  looks  you  in  the  face,  but  when  she  does 

You  have't,  and  soundly  too — 
Peppered  I  warrant  me. 

And  not  alone  upon  the  stage,  but  at  home,  and  in  the  boudoir,  she 
can  direct  the  full  power  of  their  orbits  with  an  accuracy  of  aim  which 
seldom  fails  to  hit  the  right  centre.  Her  disposition  is  sociable,  and 
her  manners  unaffected  and  amiable  ;  extremely  recherche  in  her 
pursuits,  touches  the  guitar,  and  fingers  the  piano  ;  is  fond  of  pets, 
sofa-tables,  scrap-books  and  flowers :  indeed  her  passion  for  the 
latter  is  so  inordinate,  that  if  she  ever,  for  a  moment,  could  entertain 
a  liaison,  it  would  be  either  with  a  member  of  the  Botanical  Garden 
at  Chelsea,  or  the  Compiler  of  the  Flora  Britannica.  Chimney  orna- 
ments, vases,  crockery-bars,  and  utensils  are  made  subservient  to 
woodbines,  jessamine,  myrtle,  rose-buds,  gilly  flowers,  "  heart's-ease," 
auriculas,  "  love-lies-bleeding,"  and  "  London  pride.'*  And  should  there 
be  a  scarcity  of  ordinary  vessels  to  meet  her  supply,  sauce-boats, 
gravy-tureen,  and  vegetable  dish  must,  in  their  turn,  succumb  to 
her  darling  recreation.  In  reference  to  her  earliest  admirers,  alluded 
to  in  our  former  number,  we  might  descant  upon  many  an  anonymous 
billet-doux  and  love  sonnet,  which  she  still  has  the  courtesy  to  treasure 
in  the  sealed  leaves  of  her  album. 

Georgics  and  rural  lays  from  swains  unknown, 
Lyrics  from  lords  and  cavaliers  unblest ; 
But  all  unheeded  as  the  roll  of  time, 
Or  chaff  upon  the  waters. 

The  writer  in  Actors  by  Daylight  echoes  the  same  facts,  in 
the  same  journalistic  style. 


58       THE   STAGE  LIFE   OF  MRS.   STIRLING 

In  her  domestic  circle  she  is  no  less  celebrated,  for  she  has  many 
pets  besides  her  husband — indeed,  it  has  now  become  fashionable 
for  ladies  to  patronize  either  a  dog,  cat,  parrot,  or  such-like  ;  she 
is  an  admirable  musician,  and  plays  delightfully  upon  the  piano, 
etc. ;  is  very  fond  of  flowers,  seldom  scolds,  and  is  altogether  a  partner 
of  sterling  worth. 


For  an  actress  so  immature  as  Mrs.  Stirling  still  was  to 
make  her  first  appearance  at  Drury  Lane,1  in  such  apart 
as  "  Beatrice,"  was  no  light  task.  "  Beatrice  "  touches  life 
at  many  points.  Born  though  she  be  under  a  merry  star — 
a  wit,  a  tease,  a  hoyden  and  a  romp — she  is  yet  withal  a 
matured  woman,  living  throughout  the  climax  of  the  play 
in  a  "  Much  Ado,"  which,  though  "  About  Nothing,"  was 
real  to  her  in  the  soul's  agony  of  "  Hero,"  and  in  the  stirrings 
of  her  own  new-born  love.  Though  she  never  touches 
tragedy,  she  comes  within  hail  of  it  in  the  words,  "  Kill, 
Claudio  !  "  and  "  O !  that  I  were  a  man,  I  would  eat  his 
heart  in  the  market-place  !  " 

The  actress  who  shall  play  "  Beatrice  "  as  she  should 
be  played  must  be  more  than  a  merry,  witty,  and  bewitching 
maid.  She  must  be  the  full  woman,  knowing  life,  knowing 
her  world,  and  having  at  command,  in  addition  to  dignity, 
something  of  that  breadth  of  vision  and  innate  nobility  of 
soul  that  every  Shakespearean  heroine  possesses,  and  that, 
lost  in  the  interpretation,  deprive  the  poet's  words  of  half 
their  beauty  and  meaning. 

Did  shev  then  succeed  ?  No  !  not  unless  "  a  perfect 
uproar  of  applause  "  at  the  fall  of  the  curtain  proves  success. 
It  does  not,  nor  ever  will.  Technically,  in  the  fuller  meaning 
of  that  word,  she  failed  completely. 

Mrs.  Stirling's  "Beatrice"  was  a  mistake,  says  The  Times.2  She 
was  not  the  creature  of  full  animal  spirits  that  was  born  under  a 
merry  star,  but  a  pert  lady  whose  vivacity  had  to  begin  afresh  at 
each  line,  and  who  uttered  every  witticism  with  a  sort  of  shrewish 
snap — a  very  pizzicato  person. 

It  is  only  fair  to  point  out,  however,  that  her  "  Benedick," 
1  October  30,  1839.  *  October  31,  1839. 


LYCEUM,  DRURY  LANE,  AND   OLYMPIC     59 

Marston,  appears  to  have  been  uninspiring,  since,  according 
to  the  same  critic,  he 

uttered  his  repartees  with  a  solemnity  that  would  have  caused  him 
rather  to  be  called  the  Prince's  chaplain  than  his  jester  .  .  .  his 
performance  was  perfectly  soulless,  and  with  every  variety  of  action 
there  was  no  life. 

Yet — all  excuses  made — "  Beatrice's  "  failure,  evidently, 
was,  at  bottom,  her  own.  She  had  not  been  able  altogether 
to  throw  off  the  saucy  soubrette  and  the  singing  chamber- 
maid of  Adelphi  and  pre-Adelphi  days,  nor  had  she  yet 
acquired  the  experience  of  life,  the  knowledge  of  her  art, 
the  ease  and  the  breadth  of  style  necessary  for  the  successful 
portrayal  of  such  a  character  as  "  Beatrice."  Her  tech- 
nique, in  short,  was  immature  :  and  Shakespeare  tests  the 
technique  through  and  through,  challenges  it  at  every  point. 
Her  time  of  great  achievement  was  not  yet.1 

"  '  Beatrice,'  had  commented  the  Sunday  Times,  "  is, 
or  ought  to  be,  the  study  of  a  year  at  least."  There  the 
writer  hinted  at  another  reason  for  her  failure.  She  was 
overworked  from  the  start  of  the  season.  Hammond,  the 
manager,  conscious  that  he  possessed,  in  his  leading  lady, 
a  most  willing  actress,  of  quite  unusual  charm,  energy, 
and  versatility,  put  part  after  part  upon  her.  On  Novem- 
ber 8  she  plays  "  Charlotte  "  in  "  The  Hypocrite  "  ;  on 
the  10th  "  Sally  Scraggs  "  in  "  An  Englishman  in  India  "  ; 
on  the  llth  "  Cora  "  in  "  Pizarro  "  ;  and,  while  still  playing 
"  Beatrice  "  occasionally,  adds  to  these,  at  the  end  of  the 
month,  "  Ellen  Marchmont  "  in  "  A  Woman's  Trials." 

Not  that  Hammond  was  no  better  than  a  less  guilty 
Bunn.  On  the  contrary,  he  was  an  honest  and  well-meaning 
individual ;  but  he  was  too  short  of  cash,2  and  he  lacked 
the  experience,  if  not  the  ability,  required  for  the  successful 
running  of  a  great  theatre.  He  had  begun  his  career  as  a 
comic  singer  in  the  "  Long  Room "  at  Bagnigge  Wells ; 

1  Most    of    the    sterner    critics    were    uncomplimentary.     The    Sunday 
Times  (November   10,    1839)  wrote  :     "  Mrs.   Stirling  exhibited  great  liveli- 
ness and  spirit,  but  she  must  not  let  the  former  run  away  with  her.     She 
played  '  Beatrice  '  archly  and  with  great  promise,  but  '  Beatrice  '  is,  or  ought 
to  be,  the  study  of  a  year  at  least." 

2  Salaries   were   not   regularly   paid,   even   from   the    beginning   of   the 
season. 


60       THE   STAGE  LIFE   OF  MRS.   STIRLING 

then,  after  some  country  work,  had  played  small  parts  at 
the  Haymarket,  before  returning  to  the  provinces,  where 
ultimately  he  became  a  favourite.  Bristol  knew  him,  and 
York  and  Liverpool,  in  which  latter  town — at  the  Liver — 
and  later  at  the  Strand,  he  redeemed  his  fortune. 

Many  disappointments  awaited  his  opening  of  Drury 
Lane.  Wallack,  engaged  to  appear  in  a  new  play  by  Jerrold, 
had  been  detained  in  New  York  by  the  burning  of  the 
National  Theatre  ;  promises  of  financial  assistance  were  not 
kept ;  he  opened  at  a  loss  of  about  £100  a  night ;  and  though 
his  company,  sympathizing  with  his  misfortunes,  stood  by 
him,  and  consented  to  play  three  or  four  nights  only  instead 
of  six,  he  was  in  a  bad  way.  Moreover,  he  ran  the  theatre 
without  sound  judgment,  casting  himself  for  parts  in  which 
— not  having  played  them  for  years — he  was  unpardonably 
imperfect,  putting  on  a  new  piece  hastily,  and  without  care ; 
announcing  performers  who  were  not  yet  engaged,  and  failing 
to  announce  those  who  were.  But  this  was  not  the  worst. 

Mr.  T.  Parry  brought  to  the  theatre  a  drama  entitled 
"Woman's  Trials,"  already  mentioned.  It  was  read,  ap- 
proved, announced,  despite  the  openly  expressed  opinion  of 
many  performers  that  the  play,  if  produced,  would  be 
unsuccessful.  Hammond,  unexperienced  in  the  equipment 
of  serious  drama,  persisted,  and,  in  the  absence  of  the  author, 
through  domestic  trouble,  the  piece  was  carelessly  rehearsed 
and  stage-managed — both  call-boy  and  property-man  being 
permitted  to  neglect  their  duties. 

"  Woman's  Trials  "  indeed  !  From  the  first  everything 
went  wrong.  The  pistol  with  which  the  fair  "  Ellen " 
(Mrs.  Stirling)  should  have  defended — against  the  villain — 
her  life  and  "  chi-ild  "  would  not  go  off.  That  child,  who 
had  been  shown  to  the  audience  during  the  first  act,  should 
have  been  discovered  at  the  commencement  of  the  second. 
Up  went  the  curtain ;  on  came  the  distracted  mother ;  but 
no  child  was  there.  The  actress  rushed  to  the  wings, 
snatched  up  the  first  youngster  she  could  see — not  the 
original  one — and  re-rushed  back  again,  to  an  accompaniment 
of  audible  mirth.  The  third  act  was  soundly  hissed,  and  the 
piece,  at  last,  damned  so  thoroughly  that  it  could  not  be  put 
on  even  for  a  second  night. 


LYCEUM,   DRURY  LANE,  AND   OLYMPIC     61 

Critics  consoled  the  disconsolate  heroine  as  best  they 
might. 

Mrs.  Stirling  is  a  clever,  sparkling  actress,  possessing  great  ver- 
satility, but  it  is  too  much  to  expect  her  to  sustain  five  or  six  lines 
of  character  effectively.  She  looked  very  beautiful,  spoke  very 
sensibly,  and,  in  the  first  two  acts,  did  all  that  the  part  permitted, 
but  the  sibilatory  symptoms  completely  subdued  her,  and  her  last 
act  was  exceedingly  tame. 

Marston,  moreover,  "  who  gave  a  sort  of  semi-imitation 
of  Charles  Kemble  in  his  latter  days,"  made  an  ineffective 
lover.  "  On  the  whole,"  comments  the  writer,  "  '  Beatrice,' 
4  Sally  Scraggs,'  '  Mrs.  Simpson  '  " — and,  he  might  have 
added,  "  Ellen  Marchmont  " — "  are  too  much  at  a  time  for 
one  lady."  x 

Even  the  "  sibilatory  symptoms  "  could  not  now  drive 
Mrs.  Stirling  again  to  retirement.  On  the  contrary,  early 
in  December  she  boldly,  and  successfully,  took  up  another 
new  part,  "  Gabrielle  de  Brionne  "  in  "A  Night  in  the  Bas- 
tille," a  which,  with  "  Albert "  in  "  Cupid's  Diplomacy," 
terminated  her  season  at  Drury  Lane.  The  last-named  play 
was  a  dictionary  translation  from  the  French,  concerning 
Stanislaus  Leckzinski,  ex-King  of  Poland,  played  by  Archer. 
Mrs.  Stirling  attempted  the  youthful  King  of  France, 
Louis  XV,  who  conies,  disguised  as  a  Lieutenant,  to  witness 
the  charms  of  his  beloved  Marie,  whom  he  duly  marries. 
She — that  is  he,  Louis  XV — strutted  about  in  a  dress 
sublimely  becoming,  and  seems  to  have  been  sufficiently 
male  and  kingly,  though  Mrs.  Selby  played  up  to  her  badly 
by  putting  "  too  much  Chartist  feeling  "  into  her  princess, 
thereby  lowering  the  royal  dignity  of  her  lord  and  master. 

From  Drury  Lane  Mrs.  Stirling  went  to  the  Olympic, 
to  take  up  Mrs.  Glover's  part  in  a  witty  little  sketch  by 
Mark  Lemon,  "  The  Ladies'  Club,"  first  produced  on  Feb- 
ruary 26,  when  the  leading  comedienne  of  the  day  played 
44  Mrs.  Fitzsmith,"  the  chairwoman.  This  was  a  light, 
slight  entertainment,  depicting  the  endeavour  of  a  coterie 
of  wives — neglected  by  their  club-haunting  husbands — to 

1  Sunday  Time*,  December  1,  1839. 

8  "  To  Mrs.  Stirling  the  author  is  under  great  obligation."  The  Times, 
December  6,  1839. 


62       THE   STAGE  LIFE   OF   MRS.   STIRLING 

establish  a  club  of  their  own.  Its  interest,  to  us,  is  that  it 
first  links  Mrs.  Stirling,  in  stage  history,  with  Mrs.  Glover — 
that  "  soul  of  humour,"  as  Macready  calls  her — who  had 
already  been  playing  the  chairwoman  with  a  gusto  and  rich 
unction  unequalled  by  any  comedy  actress  of  her  day.  Her 
opening  speech  in  this  trifle  was,  it  seems,  a  model  of  what 
such  a  thing  should  be — a  lesson  in  public  speaking,  not 
lost,  we  may  be  sure,  upon  her  understudy  and  ultimate 
successor,  when,  on  March  20,  Mrs.  Stirling  took  her  part 
in  that  easy  trifle,  "  The  Ladies'  Club."  That  the  change 
was  for  the  worse  we  may  be  reasonably  certain.  The 
younger  woman,  compared  with  that  grand  old  lady  of  the 
comedy  stage,  was,  doubtless,  still  crude  and  immature. 
She  was  but  at  the  outset  of  a  career  destined  to  be  as  long, 
though  less  unbroken,  than  that  of  Mrs.  Glover  herself. 
The  reader  will  note  how  large  a  space  of  our  drama's  history 
— from  1780  to  1886  ;  from  Sheridan  to  Piriero — is  covered 
by  these  two  stage  lives. 

Mrs.  Stirling,  it  is  pleasant  to  record,  became  a  great 
personal  favourite  of  Mrs.  Glover,  as  she  did  also  of  that 
other  stage  veteran,  William  Farren  ;  and  though  it  was  often 
said,  right  up  to  the  sixties,  that  the  older  actress  had  been 
followed  by  no  competent  successor,  Mrs.  Stirling  was  always 
pointed  to,  by  the  acuter  critics,  as  the  comedienne  who 
would  step  into  her  shoes.  Thus  The  Players  of  Feb- 
ruary 25,  1860  : 

If  Mrs.  Stirling  ever  sees  fit  to  essay  the  lady's  (Mrs.  Glover's)  line, 
the  world  will  see  that  we  have  one  (i.e.  a  successor)  in  her,  and  one 
that  would  have  satisfied  the  dear  old  lady  herself. 

That  hope  was,  in  a  large  measure,  fulfilled. 


CHAPTER    V 

WITH    MACREADY    AT    THE    HAYMARKET 

1840-41 

Macready's  early  career — His  style  as  an  actor  ;  personal  character,  and 
methods  as  manager — Contemporary  criticisms  of  him — Mrs.  Stirling 
joins  him  at  the  Haymarket — Takes  up  Mrs.  Nisbett's  part,  "  Con- 
stance "  in  "  The  Love  Chase " — "  Sophia  "  in  "  The  Road  to 
Ruin  " — Comment  upon  Holcroft's  play — She  replaces  Helen  Faucit 
as  "  Clara  "  in  "  Money  " — Miss  Faucit  as  an  actress — Mrs.  Stirling 
plays  "  Lady  Franklin  "  in  "  Money  " — Contemporary  criticism  of 
"  Money  " — Plays  "  Rachel  Heywood  "  in  "  The  Rent  Day  " — 
Douglas  Jerrold — Mrs.  Stirling's  deficiencies  as  a  portrayer  of  pathos 
— Birth  of  a  daughter. 

MACREADY,  under  whose  management,  at  the  Haymarket, 
Mrs.  Stirling  next  acted,  was  the  predominant  theatrical 
figure  of  the  day.  Coming  to  London,  as  we  have  seen,  in 
the  autumn  of  1816,  he  had  witnessed,  during  the  following 
year,  the  proud  withdrawal  of  John  Philip  Kemble — a 
retirement  hastened  unquestionably  by  Edmund  Kean's 
ever-increasing  reputation  and  success.  That  great  tragedian 
at  first  overshadowed  the  younger  man  ;  but  "  grim  Mac's  " 
triumph  as  "  Richard  III,"  at  Covent  Garden,  on  October  25, 
1819,  established  him  as  Kean's  rival,  while  the  latter's  long 
absences  in  America,  and  the  infrequency  of  Young's  appear- 
ances, gave  Macready  further  opportunities  that  he  was  not 
slow  to  take  advantage  of. 

Little  by  little  the  newcomer,  who  had  first  modelled 
his  style  upon  that  of  Elliston,  began  to  imitate  Kean's 
method  of  making  points,  though  he  applied  it  to  new 
characters.1  After  Kean's  premature  death,  the  adoption, 
or  adaptation,  by  Macready,  of  his  late  rival's  technique,  in 
certain  scenes  of  "  Macbeth,"  "  Othello,"  and  other  roles 
had  become  evident,  according  to  Hazlitt.2  But — imitator 
though  he  may  have  been  upon  occasion — Macready,  by 

1  Sunday  Times,  February  11,  1840.  2  London  Magazine. 

03 


64       THE   STAGE  LIFE   OF   MRS.    STIRLING 

1840,  had  won  for  himself  a  position  of  unchallenged 
supremacy  upon  the  London  stage.  Never  really  in  love 
with  his  art,  swayed  too  often  by  mood,  and  consequently 
uneven  in  his  performances,  his  standard  of  individual 
achievement  was,  nevertheless,  very  high,  especially  in  the 
portrayal  of  such  heroes  of  the  then  popular  artificial 
melodrama,  as  "  Werner,"  or  "  Virginius."  His  Shake- 
spearean impersonations1  were  not  generally  considered  to 
be  upon  the  same  level  of  excellence  ;  but,  in  all  parts  that 
afforded  him  opportunity,  he  could  and  did  give  exhibitions 
of  passion,  and  of  power,  that  would  thrill  and  electrify  t.n 
audience.2 

Nor  were  his  technical  accomplishments  as  an  actor  the 
sole  claim  to  the  supremacy  he  then  enjoyed.  In  a  day 
when,  as  we  have  seen,  some  managers  were  incompetent, 
and  many  were  unscrupulous,  Macready  was  business-like, 
energetic,  careful,  and  of  unblemished  honour.  We  have 
already  noted  his  wrar  against  the  monopoly  of  the  patent 
theatres,  against  claques  and  lying  puffs  ;  he  was  further 
to  do  splendid  work  in  remedying  social  abuses  among  the 
audiences,  and  in  raising  generally  the  tone  of  our  national 
drama  to  a  pitch  of  decency  and  of  dignity  never  attained 
before,  nor  often  since,  in  the  long  history  of  our  stage. 

One  might  well  have  supposed,  then,  that  such  a  man 

1  Fanny  Kemble,  in  the  third  volume  of  her  Records  of  Later  Life, 
expresses  openly,  after  her  candid  fashion,  her  opinion  on  Macready  as  a 
fellow  actor.  He  "  is  not  pleasant  to  act  with  ...  he  growls  and  prowls 
and  roams  and  foams  about  the  stage."  Then  again  :  "I  really  believe 
Macready  cannot  help  being  as  odious  as  he  is  on  the  stage.  ..." 

Her  points  against  him  are,  lack  of  consideration  for  his  fellow  players, 
and  lack  of  self-control  upon  the  stage.  He  was  often  violent,  and  would 
sometimes  maul  his  actresses  until  they  were  black  and  blue.  One  of  them, 
before  playing  with  him,  expressed  her  intention  of  putting  so  many  pins 
into  her  hair  and  so  arranging  them,  that  he  would  be  unable  to  hold  her 
head  "  in  chancery,"  as  he  was  apparently  given  to  doing.  Miss  Kemble 
comments  also  upon  his  total  lack  of  comic  power,  and  his  weakness  in 
Shakespeare.  His  lack  of  rhythmic  sense  made  him  cut  up  his  lines  into 
prose  ;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  if  his  ear  was  insensitive,  his  eye  was  not. 
He  had  all  a  painter's  feeling  for  colour,  grouping,  and  scenic  effect. 

z  Concerning  the  tragedian's  deficiencies,  the  Theatrical  Times  has 
some  pertinent  comments.  "  Macready,  in  his  fear  of  being  thought  melo- 
dramatic, was  generally  dull,  and  yet  there  is  intensity  beneath  the  surface 
in  all  that  he  does  "  (November  28,  1846). 

Significant,  too,  is  the  same  journal's  comment  upon  hie  work  as  a 
manager.  "  Isolation  of  effect  is  the  besetting  sin  of  Macready,  who,  as 
far  as  that  goes,  is  the  veriest  amateur  living.  He  does  not  get  up  a  play, 
he  gets  up  a  part — that  part  being  his  own  "  (June  13,  1846). 


WITH  MACREADY  AT  THE  HAYMARKET    65 

— so  highly  talented,  and  so  uniformly  successful — might 
have  moved  happily,  hopefully,  among  his  fellow  men.  Yet 
he  did  not  so.  On  the  contrary,  those  same  acute  sensi- 
bilities, and  insatiable  cravings,  that  transformed  Macready 
the  man  into  Macready  the  tragedian,  rendered  him  difficult, 
irascible,  and  petulant.  An  idealist,  as  much  as  an  artist, 
at  heart,  conventional  at  the  same  time,  and  therefore 
dissatisfied  with  the  conditions  of  his  calling ;  hungering 
always  after  a  respectability  and  a  gentility  generally  non- 
existent in  the  stage-life  of  his  day,  he  was  ever  at  odds  with 
the  world.  Consequent  reserve  and  mauvaise-honte — mis- 
taken always  for  pride — had  made  him,  too  often,  chilling 
and  distant  towards  other  members  of  his  profession.1 
Frequently  he  was  supercilious,  arrogant,  and  overbearing, 
haughty  and  imperious  to  all  but  his  most  intimate  friends. 
Through  our  mental  pictures  of  the  players  of  his  day, 
self-revealed  in  the  pages  of  his  diary,  he  moves,  an 
ambitious,  unhappy,  lonely  soul,  warring  ever  against  his 
worse  self,  despising  an  art  to  which  he  is  chained  only  by 
material  necessity  ;  2  yet,  withal,  a  man  to  be  honoured — 
moral,  just,  generous,  faithful,  tender,  and  true.  Few  more 
complex  personalities  have  ever  trod  the  stage  of  life. 

Such  a  man  was  Mrs.  Stirling's  new  manager  at  the 
Haymarket.  He  cannot  have  been  a  very  easy  one  to  work 
with,  because  his  methods — if  we  may  judge  by  contem- 
porary press  articles — were  often  as  drastic  and  as  peculiar 
as  were  his  manners.  The  tragedian,  we  may  premise, 
having  brought,  to  assist  him  at  Drury  Lane,  Phelps,  Howe, 
Wilmot  and  Mrs.  Warren,  was  reckless  in  his  manner  of 
replacing  them,  and  dictatorial  in  his  methods  at  rehearsal.3 

A  leading  actor  being  enabled  to  nominate  the  performers  that 
shall  play  with  him  establishes  a  tyranny  and  monopoly  of  a  most 
dangerous  character.  ...  A  rehearsal  under  the  present  regime  is 
a  mighty  pretty  thing — it  resembles  drill-day.  Sergeant  Macready 
takes  his  recruits,  rehearses  for  and  with  them,  making  them  all  speak 

1  Memoirs  of  Madame   Vestris  (Mrs.  Charles  Mathews),   1839. 

2  Whether  Macready  was  a  great  artist  I  venture  to  doubt.     Has  there 
ever  existed  a  great  artist  who  neither  loved  nor  respected  his  art  ?     In 
his  diary,  April  22,  1848,  he  calls  acting  "  the  worst  exercise  of  a  man's 
intellect." 

3  Sunday  Times,  January  20,  1840.     This  refers  to  a  previous  engage- 
ment at  Drury  Lane. 

5 


66       THE   STAGE  LIFE   OF   MRS.   STIRLING 

in  his  own  peculiar  manner,  conceive,  read,  and  execute  the  parts 
his  way ;  in  fact  forcing,  or  striving  to  force  them,  to  surrender  soul, 
mind,  and  body  to  his  guidance  and  direction.  By  this  system  a 
prominent  actor  at  Covent  Garden  has  sunk  to  the  place  of  a  servile 
imitator.1  These  gratuitous  lectures  upon  acting  delivered  morning 
after  morning  by  Macready,  are  not  always  conducted  with  the  calm- 
ness of  demeanour  a  lecturer  should  employ.  .  .  .  The  complaints 
of  Covent  Garden  were  long  and  loud  ;  there  Macready  was  aided 
by  the  drills  of  a  literary  corporal— one  putting  the  text  to  rights, 
the  other  the  actors.  Those  whose  characters  were  to  be  emasculated 
were  told  to  "  keep  your  eye  on  the  corporal  "  ;  those  who  were  likely 
to  create  too  much  effect  executively  were  kept  in  awe  of  the  casti- 
gation  of  the  sergeant ;  if  they  persisted  they  could  be  removed  from 
the  company  or  left  out  of  active  service. 

This  not  too  grammatical,  and  probably  exaggerated, 
version  of  Macready's  methods  refers  mainly  to  the  men  ; 
but  the  ladies  of  the  company,  it  seems,  were  by  no  means 
exempt  from  the  Macreadyizing  system.  Miss  Helen  Faucit, 
we  read,  learned  also  to  chop  up  her  sentences,  quite  in 
the  tragedian's  fashion,  to  make  sudden  transitions,  to 
affect  the  "Macready  pause" — as  the  actors'  phrase  still 
has  it — and  even  to  adopt  his  peculiar  gait  and  positions. 
"  These  defects  we  forgive  in  him,  for  that  his  powers  as  an 
actor  redeem  all,  but  they  are  odious  in  a  woman." 

Whether,  or  to  what  extent,  "  the  sergeant "  drilled 
Mrs.  Stirling,  we  do  not  know;  but  we  may  suppose  that 
she  was  no  more  immune  from  such  attention  than  were 
her  companions,  nor  can  she  much  have  disapproved  of 
her  manager,  for  Miss  Mary  Anderson  (Mme.  de  Navarro), 
who  was  an  intimate  friend  of  Mrs.  Stirling,  tells  me  that 
the  old  actress  often  expressed,  to  her,  appreciation  of 
Macready  and  of  his  methods.  Enough,  however,  has  been 
said  to  show  to  the  reader  the  more  selfish  and  hectoring 
side  of  Macready's  character;  another  and  better  side  is 
revealed  by  Phelps'  description  of  the  grim  tragedian's  act 
of  generosity  to  a  brother  actor  in  distress,2  which  is  only 
one  of  Macready's  many  open-handed  and  open-hearted 
deeds. 

1  Phelps,  who  succeeded  Macready  as  our  leading  tragedian,  was  generally 
held  to  have  imitated  Macready.  He  would  never  admit  the  charge.  See 
Toole's  Reminiscences,  by  Hatton,  p.  279. 

9  Phelps  himself.     See  Coleman's  Phelpa,  p.   172. 


WITH   MACREADY  AT  THE  HAYMARKET    67 

Mrs.  Stirling's  first  interesting  part  under  her  new 
manager 1  was  "  Lady  Rodolpha  Lumbercourt,"  in  "  The 
Man  of  the  World,"  Macklin's  last  play,  and  probably  his 
best,  written  to  bring  Maywood  before  the  public  in  the 
character  of  "  Sir  Pertinax  Macsycophant."  There  followed 
"Countess  Wintersen  "  in  "The  Stranger,"  and  "Rosalie 
Somers "  in  "  Town  and  Country "  ;  but  a  performance 
that  probably  gave  her  more  pleasure  was  "  Constance," 
in  that  lively,  versified  farce  by  Sheridan  Knowles,  "The 
Love  Chase,"  which,  for  warmth  and  generosity  of  humour, 
stands  alone  in  the  poetical  comedy  of  the  day  and  comes 
near  to  Elizabethan  merit.  It  had  been  first  produced, 
with  great  success,  at  the  Hay  market,  in  October  1837, 
Mrs.  Glover  playing  the  widow,  and  Mrs.  Nisbett  "Con- 
stance " — parts  thoroughly  suited  to  them  both.  Indeed, 
it  was  of  the  last-named  lady,  in  "  The  Love  Chase,"  that 
the  author  of  Memoirs  of  Madame  Vestris  (1839)  had 
written  : 

It  would  almost  appear  that  she  had  sat  for  the  character — arch  and 
vivacious,  a  regular  romp,  acting  on  the  impulse  of  the  moment,  and 
speaking  the  words  that  first  present  themselves,  she  is  the  very  life 
and  soul  of  every  society  that  is  fortunate  enough  to  obtain  her 
presence. 

November  brought  a  revival  of  "  The  Road  to  Ruin," 
Holcroft's  bustling  comedy,  first  performed  at  Covent 
Garden  in  1792.  This  play  had  led  the  way  to  a  fashion 
of  dialogue  in  which  the  extremes  of  moral  sentiment  and 
slang  catchword  met,  and  had  given  us,  in  "Goldfinch,"  the 
forerunner  of  the  dashing-impertinent  school  of  character, 
and  one  of  the  best  examples  of  it  that  the  English  stage  can 
show.  The  repetition  of  gags,  we  all  agree,  is  a  poor  enough 
stage  device — conducive,  as  one  critic  has  said,  to  the 
spread,  rather  than  to  the  increase,  of  wit ;  yet,  nevertheless, 
that  part  of  "  Goldfinch  "  alone,  really  well  acted,  is  good 
enough,  almost,  to  make  a  popular  success  of  any  comedy. 
The  hilarious  effect  upon  the  house  of  "  Damn  all  dancing- 
masters  and  their  umbrellas,"  and  the  quick-fire  affirmatives — 
"  That's  your  sort  " — as  spoken  by  Lewis,  are  still  traditions 

1  September  29,  1840. 


68       THE   STAGE  LIFE   OF  MRS.   STIRLING 

upon  the  stage.  For  all  its  crudity,  this  is  an  outstanding 
comedy  of  its  day,  and  one  that  might  bear  occasional  re- 
vival by  one  of  the  non-commercial  play-producing  societies, 
who,  not  without  reason,  neglect  early  nineteenth-century 
drama  in  general. 

As  the  Examiner  put  it,  "  The  Road  to  Ruin,"  though 
not  one  of  the  wisest  of  comedies,  is  the  work  of  a  true- 
hearted  and  original  man.  It  has  no  false  sentiment,  and 
none  of  those  whining,  equivocal  expressions  of  morality, 
"  in  which  there  is  nothing  real  but  the  vices  they  disguise." 
Mrs.  Stirling's  part,  "  Sophia,"  is  rather  too  insipid  and 
school -girlish  to  have  been  very  much  to  her  liking,  but 
she  succeeded  ultimately  in  making  it  extraordinary  effec- 
tive. The  Examiner,  writing  of  the  same  play,  some  two 
years  later,1  says  : 

Mrs.  Stirling  is  a  "  Sophia  "  that  no  lover  of  genuine  comedy  should 
fail  to  see.  The  part  allows  of  that  touch  of  excess  that  is  now  and 
then  the  defect  of  her  acting,  and  the  result  is  perfect.  Things  that 
have  been  said  of  the  best  comic  actresses  on  record  might  here  be 
again  said  justly.  Holcroft  would  have  thanked  her — would  have 
hugged  her  for  it. 

Upon  the  reopening  of  the  Haymarket  for  the  winter 
season,  in  February  1841,  Macready,  always  averse  from 
long  runs,  continued  to  perform  his  promise,  by  giving  his 
patrons  variety  in  their  drama.  Mrs.  Stirling's  first  appear- 
ance was  on  January  7,  1842,  when  she  replaced  Helen 
Faucit,  as  "  Clara,"  the  sentimental  heroine  of  Bulwer's 
comedy,  "  Money."  Miss  Faucit,  afterwards  Lady  Martin, 
was  that  beautiful  and  talented  actress  upon  whose  name 
De  Quincey  closes  his  catalogue  of  "  things  soft  to  sight." 

He  who  has  seen  the  Coliseum  by  moonlight,  the  Bay  of  Naples  by 
sunset,  the  battlefield  of  Waterloo  by  daybreak,  and  Miss  Helen 
Faucit  in  "  Antigone,"  has  only  to  thank  God  and  die,  since  nothing 
else  remains  worth  living  for. 

To  De  Quincey's  conclusion  I  demur  wholly,  but  it  does 
seem  certain  that  Miss  Faucit  possessed  a  tender,  classical 
beauty,  of  a  style  rarely  equalled  upon  the  stage,  and  that 
some  similar  qualifications  were  needed  by  one  who  would 

1  October  1842. 


IP 


•'.'••••  1*   H     ;:* 

MRS.    STIRLING,    ABOUT    1840. 

From  an  Engraving  by  R.  LAKE,  B.A. 


To  face  p.  68. 


WITH   MACREADY  AT  THE  HAYMARKET    69 

follow  closely  in  her  footsteps.  Here  was  further  proof 
that  the  actress,  who  of  late  had  so  successfully  replaced 
La  Nisbett  in  "  Constance,"  could  now  challenge  comparison 
also  with  Helen  Faucit  as  "  Clara."  l 

Macready  was  more  than  satisfied,  for  he  wrote  in  his 
diary 2 :  "  Was  much  pleased  with  Mrs.  Stirling  in  '  Clara.9 
She  speaks  with  a  freshness  and  truth  of  tone  that  no  other 
actress  in  the  stage  can  now  do."  With  the  month  of  May, 
however,  she  is  transferred  to  a  much  more  congenial, 
because  more  lively,  part,  in  the  same  play — "  Lady  Franklin," 
originally  played  by  Mrs.  Glover.  That  she  was  still  far  less 
than  Mrs.  Glover's  equal  is  certain.  The  Sunday  Times  wrote 8 : 

We  missed  the  easy  flow  of  voice  and  action,  the  rich  though 
subdued  comedy  which  marked  the  performance  of  the  latter  lady 
(Mrs.  Glover)  ;  for  though  Mrs.  Stirling  possesses  a  sufficiency  of 
hilarious  vivacity  of  spirit,  that  makes  her  a  general  favourite,  she 
still  needs  much  improvement  to  render  her  a  perfect  actress. 

She  was  yet  far  from  maturity ;  and  this,  surely,  is  ever 
the  actress's  tragedy — that  not  until  the  charm  of  early 
youth  and  the  first  flush  of  beauty  are  about  to  fail,  or  have 
already  waned,  can  she  hope  to  reach  full  self-expression 
in  her  art. 

Of  the  play  itself,  what  can  we  say  ?  Full  of  its  author's 
worst  faults — stiffness,  staginess,  artificiality — "  remote  from 
nature,  crammed  with  the  commonplaces  of  colloquialism 
and  affectations  of  sentiment,  it  is — to  quote  a  contemporary 
critic — a  heterogeneous  and  clumsy  mixture  of  farce,  comedy, 
and  Bartholomew  Fair." 

This  is  impolite  and  overstated,  yet,  crudely  as  the 
play  reveals  itself  to  modern  judgment,  there  is  about  it, 
nevertheless — as  also  in  "  The  Lady  of  Lyons  " — a  certain 
dynamic  quality,  of  which  a  capable  cast  can  make  use.  Well 
put  upon  the  stage,  and  admirably  acted,  such  merits  as  it 
had,  and  the  acknowledged  status  of  the  author,  drew  the 
world  of  fashion  to  the  Haymarket .  4 '  Money  ' '  and  Macready 
triumphed.4 

1  Madame  de  Navarro  tells  me  that  Helen  Faucit  used  to  speak  to  her 
very  highly  of  Mrs.  Stirling's  work. 

2  January  7,  1841.  8  May  9,  1841. 

4  Macready  in  his  diary,  December  16,  1840,  describes  "  Evelyn," 
nevertheless,  as  "  an  ineffective,  inferior  part." 


70       THE  STAGE  LIFE   OF  MRS.   STIRLING 

When  reading  the  annals  of  the  Victorian  stage,  one 
wonders  often  how  a  modern  player,  man  or  woman,  would 
come  through  such  trials  of  memory,  physique,  and  technique, 
as  those  which  were  laid  upon  the  Haymarket  company 
at  this  time.  Part  after  part,  character  after  character, 
each  as  arduous  as  its  predecessor,  is  the  leading  lady  called 
upon  to  assume.  On  April  12  Mrs.  Stirling  takes  up  the 
r61e  of  "  Rachel  Heywood,"  the  much-tried  wife,  in  that 
characteristic,  though  now  forgotten,  drama  of  its  time,  "  The 
Rent  Day,"  l  one  of  the  happiest  efforts  of  that  prolific 
dramatist,  Douglas  Jerrold. 

Jerrold,  despite  his  tongue's  "  venomed  sting,"  to  which 
Phelps  so  bitterly  alludes,2  was  a  warm-hearted,  quixotic 
individual,  much  given  to  tilting  at  windmills.  In  this 
instance,  inflamed  by  an  inspection  of  Wilkie's  famous 
pictures,3  he  protests  against  the  wrongs  inflicted,  consciously 
or  unconsciously,  upon  resident  tenants  by  absentee  land- 
lords. Mrs.  Stirling's  part,  "  Rachel  Heywood,"  was  one 
in  which  she  never  succeeded  in  satisfying  thoroughly  all 
her  critics,  though  few  of  them  damned  her  so  completely 
as  did  a  writer  in  the  Dramatic  and  Musical  Review,  when, 
some  two  and  a  half  years  later,4  he  wrote  concerning  the 
same  play : 

Mrs.  Stirling  is  unequal  to  the  expression  of  deep  pathos — the 
agonizing  grief  and  terrible  suspense  in  which  the  heart-broken  wife 
views  the  pangs  of  her  ruined  and  despairing  husband ;  her  emotion 
was  transparent,  her  manner  weak  and  artificial. 

The  dramatical  reviewer,  perhaps,  had  caught  her  on  an 
off-night ;  but  his  censure  may  have  been  in  part  deserved, 
for  Mrs.  Stirling  was  destined,  for  years  to  come,  to  be 
castigated  by  those  who  could  not,  or  would  not,  take  her 
seriously  in  serious  work.  That  she  was  inherently  capable 
of  rendering  pathos,  such  later  performances  as  "  Cordelia," 
and  "  Adrienne  Lecouvreur,"  were  abundantly  to  prove  ; 
but  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  the  very  acuteness  of  her 
intelligence,  and  her  overflowing  sense  of  humour,  would 

1  First  played  January  25,  1832. 

2  Coleman's  Phelps,  p.    183. 

8  See  Walter  Jen-old's  Life  of  Douglas  Jerrold. 
4  November  27,  1844. 


WITH   MACREADY  AT  THE  HAYMARKET    71 

allow  her  to  feel  and  sustain  the  pathetic,  only  when  character 
and  situation  were,  to  her  mind,  sufficiently  true,  natural, 
and  vivid,  to  evoke  her  full  powers  of  sympathy  and  imagina- 
tion. Even  when  all  other  conditions  were  favourable,  she 
was  never  able  to  sustain  tragic  intensity  over  a  long  period. 

We  have  no  time  to  linger  over  other  performances  during 
the  spring  and  summer  at  the  Haymarket,  that — redecorated 
during  the  Easter  recess — was  now  probably  the  smartest 
house  in  London.  Mrs.  Stirling  played  "  Helen  "  in  Knowles' 
dull  play,  "  The  Hunchback  "  ;  "  Countess  Wintersen,"  in 
"  The  Stranger,"  with  the  Charles  Keans  ;  and  "  Amelia," 
in  "  The  Philosopher  of  Berlin,"  a  Voltaire  play,  that,  though 
undramatic  in  quality,  had  some  literary  merit,  and  moved 
the  Examiner  to  say  that  "  he  had  not  seen  a  pleasant er 
thing  for  a  considerable  time."  Wallack,  as  "  Voltaire," 
made  the  philosopher  boisterous,  rather  than  petulant  and 
irascible,  as  he  really  was ;  but  the  entertainment,  as  a  whole, 
did  not  fail. 

Among  Mrs.  Stirling's  closing  parts  were  the  comedy 
lead  in  Lunn's  "  Belford  Castle,"  and  "Lady  Traffic"  in 
"  Riches,"  an  adaptation  by  J.  B.  Burges,  of  Massinger's 
hard,  unpleasant,  and  "violently  wrought  "  play,  "  The  City 
Madam."  Macready  himself  was  heavy  and  laboured  in 
Kean's  old  part  of  "  Luke  "  ;  and  if  he  was  displeased  with 
himself — as  he  very  often  was — he  was  equally  so,  on  this 
occasion,  with  Mrs.  Stirling,  whom  he  wrote  down  as 
"  decidedly  bad  " — a  verdict  that  the  critics  endorsed. 

During  that  autumn  the  actress,  for  domestic  reasons, 
retired  temporarily  from  active  work,1  and  did  little  of 
importance,  until  the  autumn  of  1842  brought  her  again, 
under  Macready 's  management,  to  Drury  Lane. 

1  The  writer's  mother,  Fanny  Stirling,  was  born  February  7,  1842. 


CHAPTER    VI 

DRURY    LANE    AND    THE    STRAND 

1842-43 

Historic  performance  of  "As  You  Like  It "  at  Drury  Lane — Phelps' 
eulogy  of  the  cast — Mrs.  Stirling's  success  as  "  Celia  " — Mrs.  Nisbett 
— Dryden's  "King  Arthur  " — "  The  Eton  Boy  " — Great  success  with 
Mrs.  Nisbett  in  Congreve's  "  Love  for  Love  " — Failure  in  Brown- 
ing's "  Blot  on  the  'Scutcheon  " — Reasons  for  dramatic  failure  of 
nineteenth-century  great  writers — Theatrical  art  lags  behind  the 
thought  of  the  time — Romantic  movements  in  France  and  England 
— Alfred  Wigan  and  transition  to  natural-romantic — The  Keeley's 
benefit — Their  styles — Mrs.  Stirling  plays  "  Mrs.  Blandish "  in 
Lunn's  "  Rights  of  Woman  " — Bunn  again — Dissensions — Failure  in 
"  Lady  Anne  "  in  "  Richard  III  " — Reasons  therefor. 

Now  and  again  in  the  annals  of  the  stage,  a  certain  per- 
formance, though  given  upon  no  special  occasion,  nor  with 
any  unusual  glamour  of  publicity,  will  stand  out  beacon- 
bright  above  its  fellows,  by  reason  of  the  quality  of  its  cast, 
and  the  technical  excellence  of  the  acting.  Such  was  the 
now  historic  performance  of  "  As  You  Like  It,"  in  which, 
on  October  1,  1842,  Mrs.  Stirling  reappeared  at  Drury 
Lane,  on  the  occasion  of  the  opening  of  Macready's  second 
season. 

Phelps,  who  played  "Adam,"  enthuses  thus  to 
Coleman  l : 

Apart  from  Clarkson  Stanfield's  magnificent  scenery,  the  music  and 
the  mounting — look  at  the  cast !  There  was  Nisbett  as  "  Rosalind  "  ! 
Not  having  seen  her,  ye  don't  know  what  beauty  is.  Her  voice  was 
liquid  music — her  laugh — there  never  was  such  a  laugh  ! — her  eyes 
living  crystals — lamps  lit  with  the  light  divine  ! — her  gorgeous  neck 
and  shoulders — her  superbly  symmetrical  limbs — her  grace,  her  taste, 
her  nameless  but  irresistible  charm.  There  was  Mrs.  Stirling  as 
"  Celia  " — let  me  tell  you  a  deuced  fine  woman  in  those  days — then 
and  always  a  most  accomplished  actress.  That  imp  of  mischief, 
Mrs.  Keeley,  the  best  "  Audrey,"  and  about  the  best  all-round  actress 

1  Coleman's  Phelps,  p.  188  et  seq. 
T2 


DRURY  LANE  AND  THE  STRAND     78 

I  have  ever  seen  ;  the  beautiful  Miss  Phillips  as  "  Phoebe,"  the  velvet- 
throated  Romer  as  "  Cupid  "  in  the  "  Masques  ".  .  .  . l 

Never,  concluded  Phelps,  had  there  been  such  a  cast  of 
44  As  You  Like  It  "  before,  nor  ever  would  there  be  again. 
Phelps  was  probably  right.  Such  a  company  has  never 
played  Rosalind's  love  story  before,  nor  since.  The  more 
credit,  therefore,  to  the  central  figure  of  this  book,  that  in 
such  distinguished  company  she  more  than  held  her  own. 
Forster,  in  the  Examiner,  wrote  : 

The  "Celia'1  of  Mrs.  Stirling  seemed  to  us  the  prettiest,  quietest, 
most  sensible,  most  graceful,  and,  if  we  may  say  so,  most  open- 
hearted  piece  of  acting  we  have  seen  of  that  kind  for  many  a  day. 

Notable  are  those  words  44  open-hearted  "  ;  they  express  a 
priceless  quality  of  Mrs.  Stirling's,  as  of  all  great  art. 

Concerning  her  success  upon  that  night  The  Times  was 
equally  emphatic  : 

Mrs.  Stirling's  "  Celia "  was  all  that  could  be  desired— full  of 
feeling  and  playfulness  most  naturally  expressed.  This,  and  the 
part  of  "  Orlando,"  by  Anderson,  were  the  most  satisfactorily  acted, 
in  a  play  upon  which  the  curtain  fell  to  the  most  tumultuous  waving 
of  hats  and  handkerchiefs  that  ever  agitated  a  crowded  pit. 

Macready  wrote,  that  evening,  in  his  diary  :  C4  She  (Mrs. 
Stirling)  and  Anderson's  4  Orlando  '  much  praised." 

And  what  of  Mrs.  Nisbett,  the  admired  of  Phelps,  into 
whose  place  also  the  new  44  Celia  "  was  to  step  ?  To  the 
charm  and  ability  of  that  actress,  others,  though  not  so 
graphically  as  Phelps,  have  borne  witness.  Macready  has 
told  us  of  the  44  fascinating  power  in  the  sweetly  ringing 
notes  of  her  laugh,"  and  Edward  Stirling2  has  recorded 
that  she  was 

always  drawing  and  filling  treasuries  when  acting  in  her  best  parts 
of  "  Rosalind,"  "  Lady  Teazle,"  "  Lady  Gay  Spanker,51 3  and  *'  Con- 
stance.'1 Who  that  ever  heard  her  merry  laugh  at  neighbour 
Wildrake's  stupidity  can  ever  forget  it  ? 

By  that  laugh  principally  she  conquered. 

1  Other    members  of    the  cast  were  :    "  Duke,"   Ryder  ;    "  First  Lord,'* 
Elton  ;   "  Jaques,"  Macready  ;   "  Oliver,"  Graham  ;   "  Orlando,"  Anderson  ; 
"  Touchstone,"  Keeley  ;  Sims  Reeves  sang. 

2  Old  Drury  Lane,  ii.  166.  8  In  "  London  Assurance." 


74       THE  STAGE  LIFE   OF  MRS.   STIRLING 

Mrs.  Nisbett,  it  was,  whom  the  younger  actress  followed,1 
as  "  Emmeline,"  in  Dryden's  "  King  Arthur,"  a  play  that, 
thanks  largely  to  PurcelPs  music,  held  the  stage  after  much 
of  its  author's  other  dramatic  work  was  forgotten,  or  ignored. 
Walter  Scott  tells  us  that  "  King  Arthur  "  was  still  acted 
in  his  day ;  but  this  must  have  been  one  of  its  last  popular 
revivals.  Dryden  has  never  since  returned  to  fashion  as 
a  dramatist,  nor  will  he,  we  suppose,  though,  if  The  Phoenix 
Society  maintain  their  most  welcome  activities,  we  may 
yet  have  occasional  opportunities  to  realize  again  Dryden's 
greatness  as  a  writer  for  the  stage,  and  to  see  some  companion 
pictures  to  that  brilliant  comedy  "Mariage  a  la  Mode."  2 

After  the  seventeenth-century  play  came  a  return  to 
farce,  when  Macready,  still  pursuing  his  policy  of  variety, 
put  on  "  The  Eton  Boy,"  by  Mathews  I  believe,  though 
some  have  fathered  it  upon  Lemon.  Whoever  wrote  it, 
the  trifle  gave  Mrs.  Stirling  an  opportunity  that,  no  doubt, 
she  thoroughly  enjoyed,  of  appearing  as  an  Etonian,  dressed 
in  a  smart  pepper-and-salt  suit,  with  her  hair  in  a  state 
of  boyish  negligence,  a  disguise  that  she  completed  by 
carrying  a  neat  fowling-piece,  adopting  a  pretty  swagger, 
and  firing  off  dog-and-gun  descriptions  with  the  greatest 
animation. 

November  brought  to  her,  in  company  with  Mrs.  Nisbett, 
one  of  the  most  completely  successful  and  happiest  occasions 
of  her  whole  career — "  Mrs.  Foresight  "  in  "  Love  for  Love." 

We  do  not  all  care  greatly  for  Congreve.  His  cynicism 
often  irritates,  and  his  indecencies  sometimes  disgust  even 
the  hardened  play-goer  ;  but  concerning  his  power  of  dramatic 
construction,  his  ability  to  depict  shades  of  character,  his 
infectious  love  of  mischief,  his  flashing  wit  and  abounding 
sense  of  humour,  his  picturesqueness,  and  his  complete — 
sometimes  too  complete — mastery  of  dialogue  and  repartee, 
there  can  be  no  question  whatever.  All  these  qualities  abound 
in  that  great  comedy  "  Love  for  Love,"  and  to  them  all  a 
woman  of  Mrs.  Stirling's  temperament  was  instantly  and 
completely  responsive.  The  subdued  pose,  the  demure 

1  November  16,  1842. 

2  Produced  at  The  Lyric,  Hammersmith,  on  February  8-9,  1920,  when 
Miss    Cathleen    Nisbett    and    Miss    Athene    Seyler    gave    remarkable    per- 
formances as  "  Doralice  "  and  "  Melanthea." 


DRURY  LANE  AND  THE  STRAND     75 

mischief,  the  arch  expression,  the  watchful  eye,  were  all 
there ;  nor  was  her  partner,  Mrs.  Nisbett,  a  whit  less  ready. 
Upon  their  merits  contemporary  criticism  is  at  one. 

44  The  scene  between  the  quarrelling  sisters  was  the  gem 
of  the  evening  so  far  as  genuine  acting  was  concerned."  x 
The  Examiner,  too,  enjoyed  himself  hugely  : 

As  for  "  Mrs.  Frail 2!  and  "  Mrs.  Foresight,5'  they  are  themselves 
a  comedy.  The  buoyancy,  the  spirit,  the  pleasure  ;  the  comment  of 
the  arch  look,  the  quiet  laugh,  the  gay  and  graceful  movement ;  the 
sharp  relish  of  every  word  in  the  dialogue,  the  delicate  and  joyous 
apprehension  of  the  finest  shades  of  the  wit — nothing  is  wanting  to 
the  glory  of  Congreve.  The  Bracegirdles  and  the  Oldfields  could  not 
have  set  it  forth  more  bravely.2 

Already  Mrs.  Stirling  was  moving  swiftly  towards  her 
destined  position  as  the  leading  actress  of  her  day  in  high 
comedy. 

But  the  whirligig  of  time  brings  set-backs  and  revenges. 
With  the  next  year  came  a  failure.  On  February  11,  1843, 
Macready  produced  a  drama  by  his  friend-to-be,  the  poet, 
Robert  Browning,  who  was  then  fast  rising  into  eminence 
among  many  promising  men  of  letters. 

44  The  Blot  on  the  'Scutcheon,"  however,  did  not  succeed. 
There  were  mistakes  and  misunderstandings  between  author 
and  actor-manager.  Macready  did  not  attend  rehearsals 
until  shortly  before  the  first  night,  and  he  made  many 
alterations  at  the  last  moment.  Phelps  wanted  more  time. 
44  Well,  sir,  if  I  understudy  your  part,  and  do  it  on  Saturday, 
do  you  think  you  will  be  ready  by  Monday  ?  " 

Phelps  thought  that,  after  all,  he  might  be  ready  by 
Saturday  I 

It  seems,  too,  that  the  drama  was  not  well  cast,  for 
Macready  writes  of  it  in  his  diary  as  44  badly  acted  in  Phelps's 
and  Mrs.  Stirling's  parts  " — she  played  44  Gwendolen  " — 
14  pretty  well  in  Anderson's,  very  well  in  Helen  Faucit's." 
One  critic  suggested  that  Mrs.  Stirling's  part  should  be 
cut  out  3 ;  another  that  the  play,  as  a  whole,  was  under- 

1  Dramatic  and  Musical  Review,  November  26,  1842. 

2  Examiner,  November  26,  1842. 

8  Sunday  Times,  February  12,  1843  :  "  Mrs.  Stirling  played  a  half 
sentimental  part  with  the  flippancy  of  a  soubrette  in  the  clothes  of  her 
mistress." 


76       THE   STAGE  LIFE   OF  MRS.   STIRLING 

acted ;  but  the  reasons  for  its  early  withdrawal — it  ran 
some  three  nights  only — are  to  be  found  in  the  inherent 
dramatic  weakness  of  the  piece.  Though  Robert  Browning 
could,  and  did  at  times,  conceive  dramatically,  the  drama, 
nevertheless,  was  not  his  natural  mode  of  expression.  His 
mind  could  not  easily  be  bent  to  meet  the  stage's  inexorable 
demands  upon  form,  and  its  insistent  call  for  directness  and 
for  clarity.  His  thought  may  have  been  always  lucid  to 
himself  at  the  moment  of  its  conception,  but  in  expression 
he  often  condensed  the  idea  into  complete  obscurity. 

There  existed,  moreover,  more  than  individual  reasons 
why  the  literary  giants  of  those  days  were  not  yet  competent 
to  make  the  stage  their  medium.  During  those  years  the 
romantic  movement,  that  had  been  inaugurated  in  English 
poetry  by  Byron,  Shelley,  Keats,  and  others — and  by  Victor 
Hugo  and  his  school  across  the  Channel — was  fast  developing ; 
but  though  "  Hernani,"  1  on  February  25,  1830,  had  estab- 
lished the  new  vogue  upon  the  stage  of  the  French  capital, 
romance  had  not  yet  made  good  in  the  English  theatre, 
nor  could  it  possibly  do  so  until  the  development  of  all 
theatrical  art — essentially  conservative,  and  lagging  always 
tardily  behind  the  latest  thought — had  made  some  rap- 
prochement possible.  New  wine  may  not  be  put  into  old 
bottles,  nor  the  romantic  expressed  in  terms  of  the  classic. 
The  theatre  must  needs  adjust  itself  to  the  nascent  idea,  by 
begetting  a  corresponding  style  of  actor,  a  newer  fashion 
in  setting,  and  an  audience  mentally  equipped  for  such 
changes. 

The  latter  was  not  yet  ready,  or  not  ready  in  sufficient 
numbers.  Our  theatre-loving  majority  continued  awhile  to 
like  their  drama  hot  and  strong,  declamatory  and  forceful ; 
and  the  demand,  still,  was  for  actors  to  match.  That  is 
why  Charles  Mathews,  for  example — a  progenitor  of  the 
new  school — is  fated  to  languish  in  the  durance  of  Lancaster 
Castle,  before  establishing  his  position  as  a  public  favourite. 
Nevertheless,  he  did  secure  it.  At  the  very  time  of  which 

1  "  Par  le  seul  fait  d'Hernani  la  question  romantique  etait  porte"e  de 
cent  lieux  en  avant,"  wrote  a  French  author.  But  our  theatrical  develop- 
ment, like  our  revolutionary  growth,  progresses  by  easier  stages  here  than 
in  France.  Though  no  one  guessed  it  at  the  time,  our  "  Hernani "  was 
the  triumph  of  Edmund  Kean  over  John  Kemble.  See  ante,  p.  21. 


DRURY  LANE  AND  THE  STRAND     77 

we  write,  the  transition  was  in  process,  from  the  stilted 
classicism  of  the  declaimers,  to  the  romantic  lightness  of  the 
Bancroft  school.  A  certain  versatile  young  character-actor, 
Alfred  Wigan,1  was  fast  making  a  name  for  himself.  The 
author  of  "  Caste  "  2  was  already  fourteen  years  old ;  and 
in  Scandinavia  had  been  born  (1828)  a  greater  than  he,  one 
destined  to  exert  an  enormous  influence  upon  the  European 
theatre.  It  is  customary  to  speak  of  the  mid- Victorian 
era  as  a  time  of  dramatic  decadence,  and,  in  a  sense,  the 
charge  is  true  ;  but  for  those  who  have  an  eye  of  faith  upon 
the  whole  century,  the  transitional  period  is  generally  full 
of  interest,  and  always  and  brightly  full  of  hope.  But  we 
must  return  to  Drury  Lane. 

On  May  6  and  10  Mrs.  Stirling  played  for  benefits,  first 
as  "Mrs.  Candour"  in  "The  School  for  Scandal,"  with 
Mrs.  Nisbett,  the  beneficiare,  as  "  Lady  Teazle."  "  Mrs* 
Candour,"  together  with  other  parts  in  old  English  comedy, 
such  as  "  Mrs.  Malaprop,"  were  impersonations  in  which 
Mrs.  Stirling,  when  she  had  fully  developed  them,  was  never 
excelled  for  significance  and  point  by  any  actress  that  has 
trodden  our  stage. 

The  second  benefit  was  that  for  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Keeley, 
when  my  grandmother  played  "  Lady  Freelove  "  in  "  The 
Jealous  Wife."  These  two  famous  comedians  of  low  life, 
the  Keeleys,  were  then  at  the  zenith  of  their  popularity. 
The  woman — for  all  her  great  cleverness — never  rose  higher 
than  the  portrayal  of  kitchen  and  back-stair  characters — 
her  "  Audrey "  was  magnificent — but  Keeley  was  more 
versatile.  He  generally  ranked,  and  was  often  contrasted, 
with  Buckstone,  the  other  favourite  low  comedian  of  the 
time,  with  whom  Mrs.  Stirling  had  often  played  at  the 
Adelphi  and  elsewhere.  Buckstone  was  the  more  striking 
personality  of  the  two.  He  was  the  pet  of  every  audience, 
and  the  chosen  laugh-maker  of  many  an  inveterate  pittite, 
including  John  Hollingshead. 

1  Then     twenty-seven     years     old :     born     March     24,     1816 :     died 
November  29,  1878.     Modelled  on  Bouffe",  a  French  actor  of  the  nineteenth 
century.     Wigan,    according   to    Knight,    lacked   robustness    and    breadth, 
but  was  excellent  in  such  French  and  semi -French  parts  as  "Monsieur 
Jacques."     My  mother,  Fanny  Stirling  the  younger,  looked  upon  him  as 
one  of  the  progenitors  of  the  new  school  of  acting. 

2  Born  January  9,  1829. 


78       THE   STAGE  LIFE   OF  MRS.   STIRLING 

Buckstone  was  always  a  salient  figure  upon  the  stage, 
blowing  the  trumpet  all  the  time,  as  who  should  say : 
"  Attention  to  me  :  something  droll  is  about  to  happen." 
And  usually  it  did.  Keeley,  on  the  contrary,  was  phleg- 
matic, impassive,  and  pathetically  acquiescent  in  the  quaint 
inflictions  that  his  stage  fate  had  always  in  store  for  him. 
By  a  modern  audience  both  men,  I  think,  would  have  been 
adjudged  coarse  and  vulgar. 

"  Gilbertha  "—for  Miss  Faucit's  benefit— in  "  Athel- 
wold,"  a  new  play  by  W.  Smith,  seems  to  have  been  Mrs. 
Stirling's  last  performance  during  that  season  at  Drury 
Lane,  for  on  June  5,  consequently  upon  a  sudden  and  severe 
illness  of  Mrs.  Orger,  we  find  her  engaged  at  the  Strand, 
by  May  wood,  the  Scotch  comedian,  to  play  "  Mrs.  Blandish  " 
in  Lunn's  "  Rights  of  Woman,"  a  comedy  which  the  leading 
lady  herself  ushered  in  by  delivering  beautifully1  Burns's 
lines,  written  during  the  French  Revolution  for  Miss  Fonte- 
nelle,2  and  beginning : 

While  Europe's  eye  is  fixed  on  mighty  things, 
The  fate  of  Empires  and  the  fall  of  kings  ; 
While  quacks  of  State  must  each  produce  his  plan, 
And  even  children  lisp  the  Rights  of  Man  ; 
Amid  this  mighty  fuss  just  let  me  mention, 
The  Rights  of  Women  merit  some  attention. 

The  women,  however,  were  to  wait  some  three-quarters 
of  a  century  longer  before  getting  the  first  representative  of 
their  sex  into  the  House  of  Commons. 

"  The  Rights  of  Women,"  as  a  play,  was  perhaps  rather 
too  Scotch  to  win  the  success  that  it  deserved  ;  but  it  gave 
Mrs.  Stirling  a  character  better  suited  to  her  talents  than 
any  in  which  she  had  been  seen  for  a  long  time.3  Her  con- 
genial task  therein  was  that  of  breaking  down  the  bachelor 
harshness  and  anti-feminine  resolutions  of  a  gruff  and  crusty 
old  Scotch  woman-hater — played,  of  course,  by  Maywood — 
and  of  making  him  fall  in  love  with  her.  This  she  accom- 
plished by  a  series  of  delicately  artful  attentions,  culminating 

1  Dramatic  and  Musical  Review,  June  10,  1843. 

a  Spoken  by  her  on  her  benefit  night,  November  26,   1792. 

8  A  French  writer  upon  men  and  manners  in  England  speaks  of  her  at 
this  time,  when  under  Maywood,  as  "  the  best  comic  actress  on  the  London 
stage." 


DRURY  LANE  AND  THE  STRAND     79 

in  a  dish  of  haggis  specially  dressed  for  his  dinner — a  silent 
homage  to  his  national  taste  that  induced  immediate 
surrender. 

Macready  meanwhile,  despite  his  clever  company  and 
his  various  policy,  had  not  fared  well  financially,1  as  witness 
the  entry  in  his  diary  under  May  29 : 

Spoke  to  Mr.  Keeley  upon  the  reduction  of  one- third  of  salary  next 
season ;  he  agreed  to  it  most  heartily ;  to  Headson — the  same  ;  to 
Mrs.  Stirling — the  same. 

That  lady  was  continuing,  for  a  time,  at  the  Strand, 
playing  "Ellen"  in  a  burlesque  of  "The  Lady  of  the 
Lake,"  until,  not  being  able  to  "divest  herself  of  her  good 
looks  and  sweet  smiles,"  she  very  properly,  and  no  doubt 
willingly,  resigned  the  part  to  Mr.  Romer,  whose  gait, 
gesture,  and  ugliness  much  better  adapted  him  to  its 
crudities,  while  Maywood — and  this  is  significant — handed 
over  "James  V"  to  that  same  Wigan,  mentioned  a  few 
pages  back,  "  a  young  actor  of  great  versatility  and  talent, 
who  performs  eccentric  light  comedy,  French,  Irish,  and 
Scotch  characters  with  extraordinary  ability."  2 

Only  one  other  performance  of  1843  needs  recall,  namely, 
the  mono -dramatic  trifle,  "  A  Night  of  Suspense,"  in  which 
Mrs.  Stirling,  alone  upon  the  stage,  had  to  interest  an 
audience,  for  twenty  minutes,  in  her  jealous  agonies  con- 
cerning an  absent  husband,  whose  knock,  at  last,  announces 
his  return.  The  actress  succeeded  completely,  and  was 
enthusiastically  called. 

That  autumn  saw  her  again  engaged  for  Drury  Lane, 
and  on  September  18  she  attended,  upon  the  stage  of  that 
theatre,  a  first  meeting  of  performers,  among  whom  were 
Harley,  Meadows,  Cooper,  Mrs.  A.  Shaw,  and  Miss  Romer. 
From  the  "  legitimate  "  point  of  view,  however,  nothing 
satisfactory  was  done;  Bunn,  the  manager — with  no  eyes 
but  for  the  main  chance — being  bent  upon  opera  or  ballet, 

1  Matthew  Arnold,  writing  of  "  The  Silver  King  "  in  1882,  compares 
the  then  popularity  of  the  Princess's  (see  Chapter  VII)  with  the  old  Princess's 
of  Macready's  day.  "  The  house  was  shabby  and  dingy  and  by  no  means 
full ;  there  was  something  melancholy  about  the  whole  thing  ...  in 
England  the  theatre  was  at  that  time  not  in  fashion."  There  you  have 
part  of  the  secret. 

»  Sunday  Times,  July  16,  1843. 


80       THE   STAGE  LIFE   OF  MRS.   STIRLING 

rather  than  drama,  while  the  actors  generally  were  too 
selfish,  apathetic,  and  disunited  to  combine  effectively  in  their 
own  interests,  supposing  even  that  they  knew  what  those 
interests  were.  Upon  that  point  the  remaining  men  of 
the  old  school — such  as  Young,  C.  Kemble,  Liston,  Jones, 
Braham,  Stanfield,  Grieve  and  Farley — differed  greatly  from 
those  of  the  new. 

Macready  goes  off  to  America,  where  he  plays  to  cold, 
empty,  cheerless,  inhospitable  houses,  while  the  leading 
musicians  and  vocalists  were  making  their  thousand  or  two 
thousand  dollars  a  night.1 

These  happenings  bring  us  to  the  beginning  of  1844. 
Bunn,  by  this  time,  is  preparing  for  "  Richard  III,"  with 
suits  of  polished  plate-armour,  specially  made  in  France  for 
the  occasion,  from  which  we  may  suppose  that  he  had  no 
intention  whatever  to  burlesque  the  tragedy,  though  the 
spirit  of  burlesque  was  much  abroad  in  those  days,2  the 
play  in  question  being  so  treated  at  the  Adelphi  during 
the  following  February.  Bunn,  therefore,  ought  to  have 
known  better  than  to  cast  Mrs.  Stirling,  who  had  recently 
been  playing  burlesque  at  the  Strand,  for  such  a  part  as 
"  Queen  Anne."  This  she  essayed,  to  the  "  Gloucester " 
of  Charles  Kean,  and  failed  completely. 

Such  a  result  might  have  been  foreseen.  Diderot's 
well-known  and  much  debated  paradox — that  an  actor 
does  not  feel  the  emotions  he  portrays — is  not  generally 
accepted  to-day.  Actors  do  feel  those  emotions,  though 
in  varying  degrees  of  intensity ;  and  most  actresses — I  was 
about  to  write  all — feel  them  more  acutely  still.  They 
weep  themselves  moist  throughout  pathetic  parts,  and  if 
they  are  unable  to  feel  the  character,  they  cannot  play  it 
convincingly. 

Now  Mrs.  Stirling  had  shown  herself,  long  before  this 

1  New  York  Morning  Herald.  Macready  was  sponsored  in  America  by 
Hackett,  father  of  James  K.  Hackett,  the  present  distinguished  actor, 
whose  impressive  performance  of  "Macbeth"  at  the  Aldwych  will  be  fresh  in 
the  minds  of  play-goers.  Mr.  Hackett  himself  told  me  how  strongly  the 
sense  of  unbroken  tradition  was  with  him  upon  that  memorable  first  night, 
November  2,  1920. 

a  The  once  popular  spectacle,  "  Cherry  and  Fair  Star,"  in  which  Mrs. 
Stirling  had  played  at  the  Pavilion,  in  1832,  was  burlesqued  at  the 
Princess's,  April  1844. 


DRURY  LANE  AND  THE  STRAND     81 

time,  to  be  a  woman  of  keen  psychological  penetration, 
quite  capable  of  observing  analytically  the  finer  shades  of 
character  in  mankind.  As  "  Lady  Anne,"  therefore,  she  was 
able  to  detect  at  once  the  simple — though  subtly-phrased — 
wiles  of  "  Gloucester,"  and  to  detect  them  so  swiftly  that 
the  meeting  of  the  pair,  from  the  first,  was  no  more  to  her 
than  what  Richard  calls  it  at  the  close — a  "  keen  encounter 
of  our  wits  " — an  exquisitely  skilful,  and  consequently  enjoy- 
able, thrust  and  parry  of  words.  Nor  do  I  believe  that 
any  actress  possessing  a  developed  sense  of  humour  could 
readily  accept  the  duologue  as  anything  else.  Throughout 
the  scene  this  fleet-tongued  couple  are  just  flirting  and 
coquetting  over  "  the  pale  ashes  of  the  house  of  Lancaster." 
This  is  one  instance,  it  seems,  in  which  Shakespeare  per- 
mitted his  marvellous  command  of  words  and  his  trained 
instinct  for  theatrical  situation,  to  override  his  sense  of  the 
probable.1  "  Lady  Anne's  "  perviousness  to  flattery  is  too 
great  to  be  convincing ;  and  consciousness  of  that  fact  made 
the  role,  for  Mrs.  Stirling,  another  stifled  study  in  burlesque. 
The  Times  critic  certainly  thought  so.2 

Mrs.  Stirling  is  an  excellent  comic  actress,  and  shines  also  in  the 
domestic  pathetic  ;  but  she  was  not  herself  as  "  Lady  Anne."  She 
seemed  as  if  she  would  have  liked  much  to  make  a  comedy  part  of  itt 

The  Era  of  January  28  told  the  same  tale: 

Mrs.  Stirling  was  out  of  her  element  in  "  Lady  Anne2' ;  "  Thalia'1 
marked  her  for  her  own,  in  spite  of  all  her  sabled  woes  and  cambric 
handkerchief. 

Even  more  direct  was  the  Dramatic  and  Musical  Review : 

Mrs.  Stirling  failed  most  lamentably  as  "  Lady  Anne";  her 
reproofs  were  scoldings,  her  pathos  artificial.  We  are  sure  she  longed 
to  laugh,  as  we  ourselves  could  scarcely  forbear  doing. 

The     comedienne    was    to    appear    many   times    more    in 
Shakespearean  tragedy,  but  never  again  in  that  part. 

Of  her  other  performances  at  Drury  Lane,  that  season, 
I  have  no  record,  except  in  one  for  May  28,  when  she 

1  Nevertheless,  the  scene,  well  played,  is  always  effective,  as  those  know 
who  saw  Miss  Dorothy  Green  and  Mr.  Baliol  Holloway  play  it  recently  at 
Stratford  (May  1921).  2  January  23,  1844. 

6 


82       THE   STAGE   LIFE   OF  MRS.   STIRLING 

played  "  Maria "  in  "  The  Daughter  of  the  Regiment," 
singing  all  Donizetti's  music,  which  she  followed  by  por- 
traying the  heroine,  "  Black-Eyed  Susan,"  in  Douglas 
Jerrold's  once  most  popular  nautical  melodrama,  first  pro- 
duced at  the  Surrey,  on  Whit -Monday,  June  8,  1829.1 

1  Douglas  Jerrold,  by  Walter  Jerrold,  i.  115. 


CHAPTER    VII 

AT    THE    PRINCESS'S 

1844-47 

Engaged  by  Maddox  at  the  Princess's — Retirement  of  Mrs.  Nisbett — 
"Don  Caesar  de  Bazan" — Mrs.  Stirling  plays  "Desdemona" — A  com- 
parative failure — Letters  of  "  Theates  "  to  the  Examiner — The 
Examiner's  opinion  thereon — Success  as  "Cordelia" — Reasons  for  her 
success — The  two  parts  compared — Another  eulogy  of  Mrs.  Stirling 
at  this  time — Her  "  Hermia  "  and  "  Katharine  " — Strength  of  the 
Princess's  company — Its  members — Masque,  "  The  Ruins  of  Athens  " 
— Macready  in  "  The  King  of  the  Commons  " — "  Dreams  of  the 
Heart  " — Irregularities  of  London  managements — Lack  of  unity  in 
productions — "  Margaret "  in  "A  New  Way  to  Pay  Old  Debts  " — 
^  Miss  Hardcastle." 

AFTER  leaving  Drury  Lane,  Mrs.  Stirling  was  at  once  engaged 
by  Maddox  for  the  Princess's,  to  supply  the  place  left  vacant 
by  Miss  Fortescue.  Maddox  had  been  running  opera  for 
a  time,  but,  owing  to  difficulties  with  his  singers,  had  been 
compelled  to  return  to  drama,  and  had  collected  a  strong 
company,  including,  in  addition  to  Mrs.  Stirling,  James 
Wallack,  Henry  Wallack  (as  Stage  Manager),  Walter  Lacey, 
and  Oxberry. 

They  opened  on  October  8,  soon  after  an  event  that 
must  be  recorded  here — the  withdrawal  from  the  stage  of 
Louisa  Cranstoun  Nisbett,1  before  her  marriage  to  Sir  William 
Boothby,  Controller  of  the  Customs,  then  in  his  seventieth 
year.  With  her  there  vanished  from  theatrical  life  a  ripe 
actress,  of  unchallenged  supremacy  in  playing  fashionable 
great  ladies,  of  the  then  modern  school ;  and  one  whose 
beauty,  high  spirits,  and  infectious  gaiety  had  conquered 
many  a  heart,  besides  that  of  Samuel  Phelps.2  Her  buoyant 
spirit  and  ringing  laugh,  her  swift  appreciation  of  every 
racy  jest,  her  ready  and  complete  self-abandonment  to 

1  Mrs.  Nisbett  was  then  in  her  thirty-third  year.  She  died  January  16, 
1858,  aged  forty-six.  *  See  ante,  p.  72. 


84        THE  STAGE  LIFE   OF  MRS.   STIRLING 

each  joyous  impulse,  were  as  irresistible  to  an  audience 
then  as  they  would  be  to-day. 

With  Mrs.  Nisbett's  passing,  only  Mrs.  Glover  was  now 
left,  to  challenge  Mrs.  Stirling's  claim  to  first  place  among 
the  high  comediennes  of  her  time,  though  the  younger  actress 
herself  was  probably  unable,  as  yet,  to  realize  the  full 
possibilities  that  were  before  her. 

On  November  13,  1844,  she  played  "  Mrs.  Lorimer," 
in  "A  Widow  Bewitched,"  a  slight  adaptation  from  a 
French  Vaudeville,  redeemed  from  insignificance  by  her 
acting,  and  that  of  Walter  Lacey  and  Granby.  After  a 
revival  of  "  The  Rent  Day  " — Douglas  Jerrold  being  not 
yet  in  eclipse — she  essayed  the  lead,  "  Maritana,"  the  gipsy, 
in  a  commonplace,  fustian  melodrama,  typical  of  its  time, 
known  as  "  Don  Cesar  de  Bazan,"  followed,  during 
February,  by  "Rebecca,"  in  "The  Carbonari,"  or  "The 
Bride  of  Parma,"  a  very  thin  play,  concerning  which  a 
critic  wrote : 

Mrs.  Stirling's  acting  is  deserving  of  great  praise.  She  shows 
that  she  fully  understands  every  character  that  she  attempts,  though 
she  has  not  always  the  art  to  conceal  the  art  that  she  uses  in  por- 
traying it. 

Then  came  a  harder  task,  when  the  young  actress 
attempted,  for  the  first  time,  "  Desdemona  "  to  Forrest's 
"Othello,"  and  the  "Emilia"  of  Miss  Cushman,  the 
American  actress,  with  whom  she  played  much  at  this  time. 
Press  comments  were  not,  upon  the  whole,  very  favourable. 
A  majority  of  the  critics  damned  her  performance  with 
faint  praise,  as,  for  example,  the  Sunday  Times,  which  wrote : 

Mrs.  Stirling  looked  very  lovely  and  spoke  very  sensibly,  but  she 
wants  tenderness  and  trustfulness  ;  in  the  last  scene  she  gave  us  no 
idea  of  the  creature  who  only  hopes  for  life,  and  will  not  even  attempt 
to  contend  for  it.  Yet  what  comic  actress  of  the  present  day  could 
play  "  Desdemona  "  with  her  ?  Not  one. l 

The  verdict  was  just.  Mrs.  Stirling,  no  doubt,  was 
not  of  gentle  enough  temperament,  nor  then  skilled  enough 

1  Macready  said  to  Fanny  Kemble  concerning  "Desdemona":  "There 
is  absolutely  nothing  to  be  done  with  it,  nothing ;  nobody  can  produce 
any  effect  in  it ;  and  really  '  Emilia's '  last  scene  can  be  made  a  great  deal 
more  of."  Many  will  agree  with  him. 


AT  THE   PRINCESS'S  85 

in  portraying  gentleness  to  make  an  ideal  "  Desdemona "  ; 
and  yet,  delving  among  the  journals  of  the  day,  and  forming 
a  vivid  mental  picture  of  the  artist's  capabilities  at  that 
period  of  her  development,  I  was  not  altogether  satisfied 
that  these  press-men  were  quite  awake  to  her  possibilities, 
nor  was  I  surprised  to  chance  upon  the  following  letters, 
both  of  which  are  very  interesting,  for  their  intrinsic  critical 
value,  and  as  showing — what  was  already  in  my  mind,  as 
a  probability — that,  to  a  certain  number  of  intelligent  and 
cultured  play-goers  of  the  time,  Mrs.  Stirling  had  revealed 
capacity  and  promise  of  which  neither  the  critics  nor  the 
public  in  general  were  as  yet  fully  conscious. 

The  Editor  of  the  Examiner,  in  which  the  letters  appeared, 
did  not  profess  to  agree  with  the  writer,  but  "  would  not 
withhold  from  this  clever  lady  the  honest  tribute  of  an 
intelligent  and  accomplished  critic." 

March  8,  1845. 
SIR, 

As  you  did  not  yourself  see  the  performance  of  "  Othello  " 
lately  at  the  Princess's  Theatre,  will  you  take  from  one  who  did  a 
few  observations  upon  one  of  the  parts,  which  has  not,  I  think,  been 
praised  as  much  as  it  deserves.  I  say  nothing  of  Mr.  Forrest,  because 
he  deserves  no  praise  at  all ;  or  of  Miss  Cushman,  because,  though 
she  deserves  much,  she  has  received  much,  and  I  hope  we  shall  see 
a  great  deal  more  of  her.  But  with  regard  to  Mrs.  Stirling's 
"  Desdemona,"  your  brethren  of  the  press  do  not  seem  to  be  aware 
of  its  intrinsic  merit  or  of  the  depth  and  range  of  the  genius  it  indi- 
cates ;  and  therefore  I  fear  that  managers  will  not  be  encouraged 
to  bring  her  forward  in  the  class  of  characters  for  which  she  is  fittest 
— for  which,  indeed  (in  our  present  dearth  of  actresses)  I  should  my- 
self say  that  she  alone  is  fit.  "  Pretty  and  interesting,  though  in 
a  part  out  of  her  usual  line  " — "  Very  pretty,  but  '  Desdemona ' 
sadly  out  of  her  line  " — "  Pleasing  and  intelligent,  though  not  aris- 
tocratic enough  for  the  daughter  of  '  Brabantio.'  "  Such,  or  such 
like,  are  the  only  notices  I  find  in  the  newspapers  of  one  of  the  most 
feeling,  natural,  delicate,  musical,  and  truly  lady-like  performances 
that  I  ever  saw  :  and  they  make  me  think  that  newspaper  critics 
do  not  understand  either  what  Mrs.  Stirling's  proper  line  is,  or  how 
one  of  Shakespeare's  women  ought  to  be  acted.  To  see  her  in  a  part 
worthy  of  her  is  indeed  difficult  enough  ;  but  that  is  not  her  fault. 
Managers  have  generally  provided  her  with  nothing  better  than  empty 
farce,  or  trashy  melodrama  or  sickening  sentiment ;  and  the  British 
public,  seeing  her  so  provided  by  those  who  should  know  best,  have 


86       THE   STAGE  LIFE   OF   MRS.  STIRLING 

concluded  that  this  is  her  proper  sphere,  and  that  if  she  occasionally 
undertakes  a  character  of  a  higher  order,  it  is  but  for  a  shift,  and  to 
be  treated  with  indulgence.  They  know  that  if  they  were  expected 
to  applaud  her,  her  name  would  be  printed  in  much  larger  type  ; 
and  not  being  asked  to  admire,  they  are  well  satisfied  if  they  see 
nothing  to  blame.  Now  my  own  impression  is  widely  different. 
When  I  first  saw  Mrs.  Stirling  (whom  I  should  tell  you,  by  the  way, 
I  have  never  seen  but  on  the  stage)  eight  or  nine  years  ago,  in  some 
worthless  character  which  had  no  interest,  except  what  her  own  feel- 
ing and  imagination  imparted  to  it,  I  felt  that  her  proper  province 
was  Shakespearean  comedy.  Since  that  time  I  have  seen  her  in  many 
parts,  and  by  accident  in  two  or  three  good  ones  ;  and  I  have  always 
observed  that  the  better  the  part  the  better  was  her  acting,  so  that 
if  my  original  opinion  has  undergone  any  change,  it  is  only  in  this — 
that  instead  of  limiting  her  province  to  comedy,  I  am  now  inclined 
to  limit  it  only  to  nature.  Her  tears  are  quite  as  true  as  her  laughter, 
and  I  never  saw  her  act  otherwise  than  naturally,  except  in  char- 
acters which  were  not  themselves  in  nature.  From  her  "  Constance  " 
in  "  The  Love  Chase  "  I  could  only  infer  that  she  ought  to  be  playing 
"Beatrice"  and  "Katharine."  Her  "Lady  Rodolpha "  in  "The 
Man  of  the  World  "  made  me  wish  to  see  her  in  "  Lady  Teazle."  Her 
"  Celia  "  (which  I  am  sure  you  have  not  forgotten)  proved  she  would 
be  quite  at  home  in  "  Rosalind "  and  "  Portia."  And  now  that  I 
have  seen  her  in  "  Desdemona "  nothing  shall  convince  me  (short 
of  seeing  her  with  my  own  eyes  fail)  that  she  would  not  make  the 
best  "  Ophelia,"  the  best  "  Cordelia,"  the  best  "  Viola  " — nay,  the 
best  "Miranda"  and  "  Perdita  " — that  our  stage  can  now  produce. 
This  is  a  bold  opinion,  which  I  could  not  make  good  without  a 
long  criticism  .  .  .  but  you  will  perhaps  allow  me  in  a  second  com- 
munication to  explain  briefly  what  are  the  peculiar  merits  which 
I  seem  to  perceive  in  her  acting,  and  from  which  I  infer  that  her 
proper  characters  are  to  be  found  in  Shakespeare. 

THEATES. 

The  second  letter  followed  a  week  later. 

March  15,  1845. 

SIR, 

According  to  my  promise  I  will  now  state  shortly  the  leading 
qualities  which,  in  my  judgment,  distinguish  Mrs.  Stirling  from 
English  actresses,  and  ought  specially  to  appropriate  her  to  Shakespeare. 

The  first,  and  though  not  the  greatest,  perhaps  the  most  indis- 
pensable, is  her  power  of  recitation  ;  which  though  beautifully  articu- 
late, and  audible  in  all  parts  of  the  house,  is  as  easy  and  natural  as 
if  she  were  talking  in  a  room  ;  and  though  ranging  at  will  through 
every  variety  of  feeling  and  expression,  yet  passes  so  gracefully  from 
change  to  change  that  the  sense  of  the  rhythm  and  measure  is  never 
lost,  always  musical,  never  monotonous. 


AT   THE  PRINCESS'S  87 

The  second,  which  is  higher  and  rarer,  is  the  fulness  and  complete- 
ness with  which  she  enters  into  the  spirit  of  her  part :  the  sense, 
which  never  quits  her,  not  only  of  her  own  situation,  but  of  all  the 
surrounding  scene  and  circumstance.  It  is  not  only  while  she  speaks 
or  is  spoken  to,  that  she  feels  who  or  where  she  is  ;  she  feels,  and 
feels  in  every  nerve,  all  that  is  going  on  around  her.  When  she  was 
brought  into  the  Senate  (in  "  Othello ")  her  consciousness  of  the 
threefold  embarrassment  of  her  situation  (which  by  the  way  I  never 
so  fully  felt  before) — the  first  meeting  with  her  father,  the  first  pub- 
lication of  her  marriage,  the  awful  and  unaccustomed  presence — 
expressed  itself  long  before  she  spoke,  in  every  action,  as  sensibly 
as  words  could  do.  When  she  was  waiting  on  the  platform  for  tidings 
of  "  Othello,"  she  seemed  to  be  sinking  at  the  sound  of  the  breakers 
against  the  bulwarks.  She  never  forgets  who  are  within  hearing, 
nor  whether  she  is  under  a  roof  or  in  the  open  air. 

The  third  and  greatest  is  what,  for  want  of  a  better  word,  I  must 
call  the  individuality  which  she  imparts  to  all  her  personations  ;  the 
power  of  perceiving  and  portraying  the  undefinable  peculiarities  of 
character,  which,  in  Nature  and  in  Shakespeare,  make  us  feel  that 
no  two  persons  are  exactly  like  each  other.  Try  to  describe  any 
one  woman,  and  there  are  a  hundred  others  whom  the  description 
will  fit  as  well ;  yet  no  one  who  knows  her  could  mistake  her  for  any 
one  of  them.  You  cannot  state  in  words  wherein  the  difference  lies, 
yet  you  feel  that  the  difference  is  essential.  So  it  is  in  Mrs.  Stirling's 
acting.  If  she  were  to  play  first  "  Mrs  Ford  "  and  then  "  Mrs.  Page  "  ; 
or  "  Regan  "  one  night  and  "  Goneril "  the  next,  it  would  not  be 
like  the  same  person  uttering  different  sets  of  speeches,  but  like  two 
distinct  persons  bearing  a  strong  resemblance  to  each  other — distinct 
in  the  basis  of  the  character,  resembling  in  the  accidentals.  And  this 
I  take  to  be  the  most  Shakespearean  quality  which  a  player  can  possess  ; 
an  excellence  not  to  be  obtained  but  by  a  profound  conception  of  the 
idea,  and  a  perfect  sympathy  with  the  feeling  of  the  poet,  which  implies 
no  small  measure  of  the  poetic  imagination  itself. 

Now,  Sir,  I  know  nothing  whatever  of  Mrs.  Stirling,  except  as 
an  actress  ;  never  heard  her  voice  except  on  the  stage  ;  and  it  is 
simply  on  behalf  of  judicious  play-goers,  who  like  to  see  Shakespeare 
worthily  acted,  that  I  ask  why,  if  she  possesses  such  qualities  as  these, 
she  does  not  appear  oftener  in  parts  which  bring  them  into  play  ? 
Why  is  she  condemned  to  waste  such  talents  in  throwing  some  human 
interest  into  such  wretched  trash  as  "  Don  Cesar  de  Bazan  "  or  so 
slight  and  thin  a  manufacture  as  "  Carbonaro."  The  public,  perhaps, 
as  critics,  are  not  prepared  to  rate  her  as  highly  as  I  do  ;  but  I  observe 
that,  though  she  does  not  draw  down  "  repeated  plaudits,"  she 
receives  a  great  deal  of  the  best  kind  of  applause — the  only  applause 
indeed  that  can  truly  be  called  hearty  (for  those  "  plaudits  "  express 
opinion  rather  than  feelings),  I  mean  the  pleasure,  sympathy,  and 
natural  interest  with  which  she  is  always  attended.  The  public  feel 


88       THE   STAGE  LIFE   OF   MRS.   STIRLING 

that  her  acting  is  agreeable,  and  I  am  persuaded  that  (if  they  were 
but  told  to  do  so  by  a  received  authority)  they  would  very  readily 
think  it  fine. 

THEATES. 


Editorial  comment  upon  these  letters  was  to  the  effect 
that  the  writer  had  allowed  too  little  for  the  foils  that  set 
off  Mrs.  Stirling's  talent.  "  The  lady  being  natural  and 
intelligent,  shines  forth  among  those  who  surround  her — a 
good  deed  in  a  naughty  world."  This  was  hard  upon  her 
collaborators  ;  yet  certain  admissions  must  be  made. 

Sensible,  shrewd,  and  penetrating  though  the  quoted 
epistles  are,  it  seems  probable  that  the  great  admiration  of 
"Theates  "  for  Mrs.  Stirling's  personality  and  methods  had 
made  him  somewhat  too  sanguine  a  prophet,  nor  was  his  advo- 
cacy powerful  enough  to  bring  critics  or  play-goers,  as  a  body, 
to  his  side  ;  for  when,  in  the  autumn  of  the  same  year,  she 
played  "Desdemona"  again,  to  the  "  Othello"  of  Macready 
— then  by  common  consent  the  foremost  actor  of  his  day — 
the  reception  of  her  performances  by  the  press  was  not 
particularly  favourable,  the  Examiner  stating  bluntly  that 
the  company's  resources  fell  short  of  the  drama's  require- 
ment. The  Era,  perhaps,  best  summarized  general  opinion, 
when  it  characterized  Mrs.  Stirling's  "Desdemona"  as  "soft, 
sweet,  innocent,  unsuspicious,  and  pathetic,"  but  beyond 
her  calibre.  "  The  public  have  only  to  thank  her  for  essaying 
a  part  that  no  one  else  in  the  establishment  could  so  well 
portray  " — or,  in  other  words,  "  a  good  deed  in  a  naughty 
world  "  again.  The  Times  throws  further  light  upon  her 
comparative  failure,  in  the  significant  sentence :  "  It  is 
the  representation  of  a  nature  that  cannot  believe  a  wrong, 
and  treats  the  approach  of  one  with  an  unconsciousness 
that  appears  almost  like  levity." 

"  Levity !  "  Was  "  Thalia  "  still  calling  ?  How  hard  is  it 
for  an  accomplished  young  comedy  actress,  or  comedian 
of  any  sort,  to  live  down  the  implied  limitation — Ne  sutor 
ultra  crepidam! 

But  we  must  return,  for  a  moment,  to  the  spring  of 
1845. 

44  Theates,"  in  the  first  letter  above  quoted,  had  expressed 


AT  THE  PRINCESS'S  89 

the  conviction  that  his  favourite  would  make  the  best  "  Cor- 
delia "  that  the  stage  of  her  day  could  produce.  She  was 
soon  given  the  opportunity — appearing  in  that  part,  in 
March  and  April,  to  Forrest's  "  Lear."  This  time  there 
was  no  failure.  "  Cordelia  "  is  less  exacting  a  role  than 
"Desdemona."  She  does  not  demand  the  same  sustained 
and  tragic  tension,  nor  is  the  actress  called  upon,  as  in  "  Lady 
Anne,"  to  tempt  her  sincerity  by  entering  upon  dialogue  in 
which,  at  bottom,  the  head  rules  the  heart.  Titanically 
tragic  though  "Lear"  be,  beyond  all  that  ever  was  written, 
or  shall  be  written,  the  pathos  of  "  Cordelia's  "  opening  scenes 
remain  within  the  range  of  domestic  drama.  The  King's 
"  So  young  and  so  untender,"  capped  by  "Cordelia's"  "So 
young  my  Lord  and  true,"  is  the  simple  yet  most  noble 
wit  of  heart,  rather  than  of  head.  In  "  Cordelia,"  therefore, 
Mrs.  Stirling  found  herself  within  her  range,  and  if  not 
completely  successful,  came  nearer  to  complete  success  than 
in  any  other  Shakespearean  tragic  impersonation.  The 
critics,  upon  the  whole,  were  well  satisfied,  as  witness  the 
Era1: 

The  "  Cordelia  "  of  Mrs.  Stirling  was  exceedingly  natural,  grace- 
ful, and  touching.  She  is  a  charming  as  well  as  a  talented  actress  .  .  . 
was  loudly  called  for  at  the  conclusion  of  the  tragedy,  and  received 
a  well-merited  portion  of  the  applause  bestowed  upon  Mr.  Forrest. 

Upon  Mrs.  Stirling's  intellectual  and  technical  develop- 
ment as  an  actress,  during  these  seasons  at  the  Princess's, 
more  light  is  thrown  by  that  sympathetic  writer  in  Tallis's 
Magazine,  whom  we  have  already  found  occasion  to  quote. 

We  remember  her  "  Cordelia  "  in  "  Lear,"  and  accounted  it,  at 
the  time,  one  of  the  finest  embodiments  of  character  that  we  had 
ever  witnessed.  The  sweetness  of  her  intonation,  the  beauty  of  her 
person,  the  stateliness  of  her  demeanour,  and  the  grace  of  her  action, 
all  qualified  Mrs.  Stirling  for  the  representation  of  this,  the  loveliest 
character  in  dramatic  poetry.  It  was  clear  from  her  attitudes  that 
Mrs.  Stirling  had  begun  to  study  the  statuesque  ;  and  we  perceived 
in  the  fact  an  evidence  that  she  was  devoted  to  her  profession  in 
earnest,  ambitious  of  its  honours,  and  in  a  fair  way  to  win  them.  It 
was  now,  too,  that  criticism  made  her  the  object  of  special  remark  ; 
and  general  hopes  were  entertained  that  in  Mrs.  Stirling  we  possessed 

i  March  9,  1845. 


90       THE   STAGE  LIFE   OF   MRS.   STIRLING 

an  actress  capable  of  doing  extraordinary  things,  when  suitable  demands 
should  be  made  upon  her  talents.  .  .  .  We  have  singled  out "  Cordelia  " 
for  particular  remark ;  but  in  "  Rosalind,"1  "  Portia,"  and  "  Des- 
demona"  she  achieved  equal  success,  and  in  all  her  acting  blended 
pathos  with  power.2 

In  "  Hermia,"  too,  she  succeeded  admirably,  as  one 
would  have  supposed.  The  Musical  and  Dramatic  Review 
(July  18,  1846),  described  this  as  one  of  her  most  meritorious 
performances,  while  the  Examiner  (April  10,  1847)  praised 
her  thus : 

It  was  pleasant  to  see  Mrs.  Stirling  deliver  the  lovely  part  of 
"  Hermia.'1  Whatever  her  position  as  an  actress,  as  an  elocutionist 
she  was  always  in  the  front  rank. 

Almost  hyperbolic  is  the  Theatrical  Times  of  April  10,  1847 : 

Compton  and  Mrs.  Stirling  were  excellent  in  "  Bottom "  and 
"  Hermia."  Probably  no  performer  alive  could  have  at  all  surpassed 
them.  "  Hermia  "  is  a  small  part,  but  the  grace  and  poetic  feeling 
of  the  actress  raised  its  importance.  Mrs.  Stirling  is  the  best  genteel 
actress  we  have,  and  her  every  movement  is  easy  as  her  every  accent 
is  delightful.  Nature  might  well  smile  upon  her  to  see  her  own  image 
in  such  a  form,  and  art  almost  despair  to  find  a  grace  beyond  her  reach. 

Into  all  the  details  of  the  heavy  work  done  by  her  during 
those  busy  years  at  the  Princess's,  we  have  no  space  to 
enter.  The  varied  list  of  her  parts  can  be  read  at  the  end 
of  this  book.  A  few  of  them  only  we  will  recall. 

In  May  1845  was  put  on  "  The  Chevalier  de  St.  George," 
from  the  French  original  of  the  same  name,  played  first 
about  1840  by  Lafont  at  the  Theatre  des  Varietes  ;  here, 
at  the  Princess's,  by  Wallack,  who  showed  great  breadth 
and  vigour  in  the  part." 

The  "  Comtesse  de  Presle  n  was  played  with  extraordinary  taste 
and  elegance  by  Mrs.  Stirling.  There  was  an  indescribable  combina- 
tion of  coquetry,  gaiety,  and  pathos  in  her  acting  that  pleased  us 
exceedingly.3 

1  "  Rosalind "  was  probably  her  favourite  Shakespearean  part.  See 
Miss  Mary  Anderson's  recollections  of  Mrs.  Stirling  in  the  last  chapter  of 
this  book. 

a  Her  other  Shakespearean  parts  at  the  Princess's  were  "  Beatrice," 
October  28,  1845,  to  Wallack's  "Benedick";  "Rosalind,"  November  11, 
1845;  "Mrs.  Ford,"  July  1,  1847;  "Hermia,"  April  5,  1847. 

3  Sunday  Times,  May  25,  1845. 


AT  THE  PRINCESS'S  91 

In  "  Katharine  and  Petruchio  "  *  also,  and  "  Advice  to 
Husbands,"  she  did  very  well.  Concerning  the  latter  the 
same  critic  writes : 

We  have  rarely  seen  a  little  piece  played  with  more  truth  and  feeling 
than  this  was  by  Mr.  James  Vining,  Mr.  Granby,  and  Mrs.  Stirling — 
more  particularly  the  latter,  who  threw  into  the  character  of  "  Mrs. 
Trevor "  a  degree  of  quiet  pathos  and  womanly  tenderness  which 
quite  equalled,  if  it  did  not  surpass,  anything  of  the  kind  we  have 
hitherto  witnessed  in  her  performances. 

The  company,  as  a  whole,  was  very  strong.  Besides 
Macready,  Wallack  himself  was  an  actor  of  high  repute, 
whether  in  tragedy  or  comedy;  Leigh  Murray,  a  promising 
young  player  in  juvenile  tragedy ;  James  Vining,  excellent  in 
seconds  and  in  juveniles,  serious  or  humorous  ;  R.  Roxby, 
clever  in  light  and  eccentric  comedy ;  Walton,  good  in  heavy 
business  ;  Granby,  a  favourite  in  stout  and  plethoric  citizens 
and  old  men ;  Oxbery,  in  quaint  boys  and  serving-men ; 
and  Compton,  the  best  Shakespearean  clown  upon  the  English 
stage.  Charles  Mathews  and  Mme.  Vestris  were  also  engaged. 
One  leading  lady  was  Miss  Emma  Stanley,  while  in  Mrs. 
Stirling  the  management  possessed  an  actress  "  able  to  assume 
almost  any  character  in  the  range  of  the  drama — with 
absolute  excellence  in  many,  and  taste,  judgment,  and 
artistic  feeling  in  all." 

With  such  a  wealth  of  talent  at  his  command,  it  seems 
strange  that  Maddox  should  ever  have  brought  himself  to 
court  almost  certain  failure,  by  such  a  production  as  "  The 
Ruins  of  Athens,"  adapted  from  Kotzebue's  "Masque,"  that 
had  been  first  produced  at  Pesth.  It  was  altogether  a  queer 
affair,  cited  here  only  as  an  example  of  the  extraordinary 
lapses  of  judgment  of  which  every  manager,  almost,  at  one 
time  or  another,  is  guilty.  Maddox,  apparently,  had 
endeavoured  to  enliven  the  dreary  bombast  of  the  classical 
portion  of  the  show  with  a  national  procession,  suggested, 

1  "  Mrs.  Stirling  fully  understands  her  author ;  she  is  the  veritable 
*  Katharine '  ;  her  scornful  laugh,  her  biting  retorts,  and  her  shrewish 
soliloquy  were  perfect  nature  ;  nor  does  she  stop  here  ;  she  is  not  tamed 
at  once,  but  fights  her  ground  inch  by  inch.  In  that  part  of  the  play  in 
which  she  perforce  obeys  '  Petruchio,'  in  changing  sun  for  moon,  her  com- 
pliance was  such  as  '  Katharine's  *  ought  to  be — angry,  acid,  and  forced  ; 
nor  does  '  Petruchio  '  gain  a  triumph  until  Mrs.  Stirling  completed  hers 
in  the  last  act."  Theatrical  Times,  October  28,  1848. 


92       THE   STAGE  LIFE   OF  MRS.   STIRLING 

said  one  of  the  press  critics,  "  by  that  stunning  work  of 
art,  the  Stratford  Jubilee,  exhibited  in  the  window  of  Mr. 
Grossmith's  soap-shop,  at  the  corner  of  Wellington  Street, 
Strand." 

During  the  course  of  the  proceedings,  "  Mercury,"  allotted 
to  Mrs.  Stirling,  delivered  a  popular  lecture  upon  British 
glory — with  a  side  kick  at  America — and  some  highly 
seasoned  adulation  for  the  Duke  of  Wellington,  whose  statue 
politely  popped  up  through  a  trap  door,  to  receive  the 
compliment,  and  then  popped  down  again,  while  afterwards 
a  procession  marched  round  the  stage,  carrying  banners, 
on  which  were  written  the  titles  of  Shakespeare's  plays. 
These  puerilities  were  a  reversion  to  the  type  of  spectacle 
extant  circa  1832,  when  at  Drury  Lane,  as  an  after-piece, 
you  would  see  the  characters  of  Walter  Scott's  works  grouped 
about  the  poet's  bust  and  empty  chair,  in  his  study  at 
Abbotsford  ;  "  concluding  with  a  grand  scenic  apotheosis 
of  the  Minstrel  of  the  North  !  " 

This  masque  was  followed  by  a  comedy,  equally  absurd, 
"  The  Dreamer," 

in  which  Mrs.  Stirling  played  a  very  bad  part  with  great  humour, 
which  is  much  to  her  credit,  and  looked  exceedingly  beautiful,  for 
which  we  do  not  praise  her,  as  it  is  impossible  for  her  to  look 
otherwise. l 

Upon  only  two  more  of  these  performances,  during  1846 
and  1847,  will  we  comment.  The  first  is  a  play  with 
some  pretension  to  literary  merit,  and  one  that  brought  to 
its  author  a  genuine,  though  temporary,  celebrity — "  The 
King  of  the  Commons,"  by  the  Rev.  James  White,  in  which 
Macready,  as  "King  James  V2  of  Scotland,"  had  some  noble 
and  harmonious  lines  to  speak. 

What  to  hear?— 

His  threats,  and  worse  than  threats — his  patronage  ? 
As  if  we  stooped  our  sovran  crown,  or  held  it 
As  Vassal  from  the  greatest  king  alive. 
No,  we  are  poor — I  know  we  are  poor,  my  lords  ; 

1  Sunday  Times,  March  22,  1846. 

2  Macready  wrote  in  his  diary  :    "  Acted  '  King  James  '  .  .  .  very  fairly 
considering  all  things.     Was  called  and  very  warmly  received."     May  20, 
1846. 


AT   THE   PRINCESS'S  98 

Our  realm  is  but  a  niggard  in  its  soil, 

And  the  fat  fields  of  England  wave  their  crops 

In  richer  dalliance  with  the  autumn  winds 

Than  our  bleak  plains  ;    but  from  our  rugged  dells 

Springs  a  far  richer  harvest — gallant  hearts, 

Stout  hands,  and  courage  that  would  think  foul  scorn 

To  quail  before  the  face  of  mortal  man. 

The  play,  "  though  not  so  successful  as  the  big  placards 
on  the  advertising  van  would  have  led  one  to  suppose," 
had  a  certain  vogue,  and,  according  to  the  Examiner,  showed 
Macready  at  his  best,  because 

it  afforded  him  opportunity  in  those  masterly  and  delicate  touches 
of  portraiture  which  are  turned  to  good  account  by  a  great  actor, 
but  are  scarcely  done  justice  to  in  criticism.  One  must  see  a  portrait 
by  Titian  or  Holbein.  Such  is  Macready's  "  James  V."  Mra. 
Stirling's  part  of  "Madeline  Weir"  was  very  weak. 

An  eccentric  management  indeed  !  A  few  weeks  before 
playing  "  Hermia,"  in  "A  Midsummer  Night's  Dream," 
Maddox's  leading  lady  is  condemned  to  attempt  "  Hermine," 
in  "  Dreams  of  the  Heart,"  which,  according  to  the  Sunday 
Times,  was  a  "  shabby,  vulgar  compound  of  nonsense  and 
immorality "  hashed  up  from  a  French  piece  entitled 
"Mesmerism,"  and  lustily  hissed  by  the  audience  almost 
from  beginning  to  end,  as  worthy  only  of  Bartholomew 
Fair.  Nothing  but  Mrs.  Stirling's  acting  saved  it  from  being 
hooted  from  the  stage, 

and  the  only  natural  and  amusing  incident  in  the  performance  was 
the  entry  of  a  supernumerary  actor,  in  the  shape  of  a  rough,  ugly 
little  brown  cur,  in  one  of  the  most  pathetic  scenes  of  the  drama,  who 
refused  to  quit  the  stage,  although  poked  at  from  the  orchestra, 
whistled  to  from  the  coulisses,  pelted  from  the  flies,  until  having 
satisfied  himself  by  a  general  survey  of  the  house,  and  paid  a  passing 
tribute  to  one  of  the  wings,  he  trotted  off  amid  the  only  genuine 
applause  we  heard  during  the  evening. 

Taken  altogether,  and  despite  the  presence  of  so  many 
players  of  ability,  the  London  drama  was  in  rather  a  bad 
way.      By  this  time,  including  the  French  theatre  at  St 
James's,  there  were  nineteen  theatrical  and  musical  houses 
open  in  London,  in  addition  to  the  Saloons — which  were,  by 


94       THE   STAGE  LIFE   OF  MRS.   STIRLING 

licence,  theatres — and  a  number  of  concert  rooms  also. 
The  supply  somewhat  exceeded  the  demand,  and  many 
prominent  actors,  including  Kean,  Macready,  and  Wallack, 
had,  at  one  time  or  another,  been  induced  to  cross  the  Atlantic. 
Of  those  named,  only  two — Kean  and  Macready — could 
claim  public  confidence,  as  heads  of  a  National  Theatre. 
Among  many  causes  of  the  decline,  a  principal  one  was 
the  rentals,  which — though  small  when  compared  with 
the  figures  of  to-day — were  then  considered  exorbitant. 
Elliston,  at  one  time,  was  giving  £11,000  a  year  for  Drury 
Lane ;  and  £25  to  £30  a  week  was  paid  for  the  tiny 
Strand.  Proprietors,  too,  were  often  at  fault  in  letting 
deliberately  to  men  of  straw,  hoping  thereby  to  be  in  a 
position  to  enforce  better  terms,  and,  if  necessary,  to  obtain 
ejectment  more  easily.  Management — excepting  always 
Macready 's — was  often  very  loose.  Spirits  were  sold  without 
a  licence;  common  informers  being  bribed  to  keep  silence. 
There  was  chicanery  in  the  booking  of  seats  ;  defalcations  by 
under-paid  doorkeepers ;  managers'  orders  sold  in  Holywell 
Street,  and  so  forth.  Moreover,  there  were  too  many  of 
the  manager's  friends  visible  behind  the  scenes — gentlemen 
who,  knowing  little,  talked  more  than  they  knew.  To  the 
lower-class  houses  demi-mondaines  were  admitted  free,  as 
an  additional  attraction. 

Rehearsals  were  often  very  badly  conducted.  Com- 
paratively little  work  was  done  at  home,  and  there  was 
too  much  reading  upon  the  stage.  Seldom  was  there  enough 
rehearsal  with  the  scenery  set — the  result  being  that  the 
manager  was  unable  properly  to  judge  beforehand  of  the 
effect  of  a  piece  ;  and  actors,  on  the  first  night,  would  make 
ludicrous  mistakes,  such  as  leaning  against  the  walls  of 
distant  castles.  The  dressing,  also,  was  frequently  in- 
appropriate. Mme.  Vestris,  in  the  character  of  a  soubrette, 
wears  white  satin,  decked  with  diamonds  of  great  value, 
while  her  mistress  treads  the  stage  in  muslin.  "  Alfred 
Jingle,"  penniless  and  starving,  sports,  at  the  Strand  Theatre, 
a  handsome  brooch  and  a  diamond  ring ;  and  even  so 
experienced  an  actress  as  Mrs.  Jordan  is  seen  in  the  "  Country 
Girl "  in  a  wig  stuck  to  the  side  of  her  head  with  a  substance 
that  melted  visibly  during  the  bustle  of  the  play.  There 


AT  THE   PRINCESS'S  95 

were  too  many  sloppy  revivals,  dressed  in  old  clothes  ;  too 
much  of  the  "  I-have-played-it-fifty-times-and-know-it-inside- 
out  "  sort  of  attitude.  Ill-feeling  was  fostered  among  the 
players  by  the  bad  managerial  habit  of  putting  up,  in  the 
Green  Room,  the  names  of  the  original  cast ;  so  that  every 
one  knew  who  had  been  asked  first  for  any  particular  part. 
Only  little  by  little  were  such  stage  abuses  to  be  put  an 
end  to,  and  a  production  at  last  conceived  as  a  complete 
and  harmonious  whole. 

Yet,  amid  all  these  mistakes,  failures,  infelicities,  and 
exasperations,  our  actress  was  unremittingly  at  work, 
increasing  daily  her  technical  efficiency,  and  charming  many 
a  play-goer,  and  not  a  few  of  the  critics  also.  In  November 
1846,  for  example,  she  played  "  Margaret,"  in  "A 
New  Way  to  Pay  Old  Debts,"  to  the  "Sir  Giles"  of 
an  American  actor,  Scott,  in  one  of  Edmund  Kean's  most 
tempestuous  parts.  The  Theatrical  Times  (November  26) 
writes  : 


The  feminine  delicacy,  the  winning  grace,  the  ease,  the  nature, 
the  polish,  of  charming  Mrs.  Stirling,  in  "  Margaret,"  are  worthy  of 
the  best  days  of  the  drama.  We  like  sometimes  to  cast  off  our  critical 
glasses,  and  be  children  again  in  the  enjoyment  of  the  mimic  scene  ; 
and  it  is  impossible  to  be  a  critic  when  this  actress  is  before  one.  She 
is  entirely  English  in  her  style,  and  yet  we  think  she  must  have  studied 
in  the  French  School  of  Art — she  is  so  entirely  free  from  mannerism 
and  affectation.  She  has  some  points  of  resemblance  to  Rose  Cheri,1 
but  is  superior  to  her.  She  realizes  the  exquisite  idea  in  "  Episy- 
chidion,"  without  any  hyperbole — "  A  metaphor  of  youth  and  spring 
and  morning." 

1  In  The  Stage  As  It  Is,  by  Dramaticus,  published  in  1847,  the  writer, 
when  mentioning  Julia  Bennett,  says  :  "  We  frankly  confess  we  don't  like 
her  half  as  well  as  Mrs.  Stirling,  whom  we  regard  as  a  true  artist,  the  Rose 
Ch^ri  of  our  stage — graceful  and  intellectual." 

Rose  Cheri  (Rose  Marie  Cizos  Montigny),  born  October  27,  1824,  began 
playing,  at  five  years  old,  in  her  father's  troupe,  throughout  central  France 
and  Brittany.  During  the  forties  she  played  at  the  Gymnase,  Paris,  in 
works  by  Scribe,  Bayard,  A.  Dumas  Fils,  Emile  Augier,  and  others  ;  and 
married  Lemoine  Montigny,  the  Director  of  that  theatre.  Among  her 
principal  r61es  were  the  leads  in  "  Le  Collier  de  Perles,"  "  Manon  Lescaut," 
"Mariage  de  Victorine,"  "Le  Pour  et  le  Centre,"  "Le  Gendre  de  M. 
Poirier,"  "Le  Demi -Monde,"  and  "Les  Pattes  de  Mouche."  Rose  Cheri 
had  great  personal  charm,  and  a  natural,  flexible  talent  that  fitted  her 
alike  for  comedy  or  serious  drama.  Dumas  Fils  said  of  her :  "  C'est  la 
seule  actrice  a  laquelle  lea  femmes  du  monde  accordent  le  droit  de  les 
represented  " 


96       THE   STAGE  LIFE   OF   MRS.   STIRLING 

And  of  her  "Miss  Hardcastle,"  in  "  She  Stoops  to 
Conquer,"  thus  : 

Mrs.  Stirling  was  all  that  could  possibly  be  desired  by  the  most 
fastidious  in  "  Miss  Hardcastle."  We  hardly  know  of  an  actress  on 
the  boards  so  very  equal  as  she  is.  Mrs.  Keeley  l  has  more  spirit, 
intensity,  and  point,  but  then  Mrs.  Stirling  possesses  personal  attrac- 
tions, with  a  glad  smile  that  steals  like  sunshine  into  the  heart  and 
warms  it,  a  clear  bell-like  voice,  and  an  ease  and  airy  lightness  that 
leave  all  rivalry  behind. 

1  Mrs.  Keeley  was  considered  by  many  to  be  the  most  intense  performer 
then  upon  the  boards. 


CHAPTER   VIII 

LYCEUM    AND    OLYMPIC 

1847-49 

Engaged  by  Mme.  Vestris  at  the  Lyceum — Mme.  Vestris  as  a  performer — 
Mrs.  Stirling  plays  "  Mrs.  Bracegirdle  "  in  "  The  Tragedy  Queen  " 
— The  original  Mrs.  Bracegirdle — Macready's  Benefit  Performance  at 
Drury  Lane — His  position  on  our  stage — Mrs.  Stirling  engaged  with 
Leigh  Murray  at  Olympic — "  Laura  Leeson  "  in  "  Time  Tries  All  " 
— Complete  success  at  last — The  place  of  these  plays  in  the  evo- 
lution of  our  modern  theatre — Leigh  Murray  as  man  and  actor — 
"  Pauline  "  in  "  The  Lady  of  Lyons  " — Mrs.  Stirling's  popularity 
at  the  Olympic — Her  success  in  "  Cousin  Cherry  " — Destruction  of 
the  Olympic  by  fire. 

BY  midsummer,  1847,  Mrs.  Stirling's  long  spell  of  work 
at  the  Princess's  had  come  to  an  end,  when  the  actress, 
after  a  holiday,  was  at  once  engaged  by  Mme.  Vestris, 
who  had  taken  the  Lyceum  for  the  autumn  season.1 

Mme.  Vestris  (Mrs.  Charles  Mathews)  had  probably 
been  the  first  female  lessee  of  an  English  theatre,  when 
she  had  opened  the  Olympic,  in  January  1831.  Technically 
but  a  third-rate  actress,  this  lady  possessed  great  physical 
charm,  and  a  contralto  voice  so  rich  in  quality  that,  had 
its  owner  been  endowed  also  with  the  necessary  musical 
patience  and  industry,  she  might  well  have  queened  it  in 
Italian  opera.  Though  never  attaining  to  that  giddy 
eminence,  Mrs.  Mathews  remained,  nevertheless,  without 
an  equal,  as  a  singer  of  songs  upon  the  stage,  and  was  a 
general  favourite,  exploiting  recklessly  her  gifts  of  archness, 
fascination,  and  mutinerie,  together  with  a  certain  careless 
acceptance  of  homage,  a  prettily  assumed  simplicity,  and  a 
confidential  appeal  to  an  audience,  that  made  her  the 
spoiled  darling  of  her  public.  The  daring  of  her  costumes 
added  also  to  her  vogue  among  many  play-goers,  as  did 

1  Mme.  Vestris  had  done  good  work  for  the  drama,  in  being  the  first 
to  introduce  a  rational  measure  of  realism  into  her  drawing-room  settings. 

7  97 


98       THE   STAGE  LIFE   OF   MRS.   STIRLING 

also  her  playfulness,    in    which   she   was    excelled    by   no 
actress  upon  the  stage,  excepting  only  Mrs.  Nisbett. 

Such,  in  brief,  was  the  woman  beneath  whose  flag  Mrs. 
Stirling  now  found  herself  enrolled,  opening,  on  October  18, 
1847,  as  "Mary  of  Denmark"  in  "The  Two  Queens," 
with  Harley  and  Charles  Selby  also  in  the  cast.  The  play 
ran  until  October  30 ;  November  seems  to  have  been  idle, 
and,  on  December  7,  Mrs.  Stirling  takes  part  in  a  memorable 
performance,  the  "  Shakespeare  Night,"  at  Co  vent  Garden, 
given  to  raise  funds  for  the  purchase  of  Shakespeare's  house 
at  Stratford.  Selections  were  acted  from  seven  plays,  Mrs. 
Stirling's  contribution  being  "Mrs.  Ford,"  always  one  of 
her  best  parts. 

Then  came  the  first  of  those  "  actress  "  impersonations, 
her  excellence  in  which  was,  in  itself,  a  proof  of  the  thorough- 
ness of  her  professional  attainment.  "  Mrs.  Bracegirdle  " 
in  "The  Tragedy  Queen  "—adapted  by  John  Oxenford 
from  the  French  "  Tiridate,"  in  which  Mme.  Fargeuil  had 
represented  the  tragedienne,  Dumesnil — gave  her  opportunity 
to  impersonate,  before  the  public,  one  of  her  most  famous 
predecessors  upon  the  stage ;  Oxenford  having  substituted, 
for  the  French  heroine,  Mrs.  Bracegirdle,  the  contemporary 
of  Congreve,  whom  rumour — notwithstanding  the  protests 
of  Colley  Cibber— had  persisted  in  making  the  dramatist's 
wife,  by  a  private  marriage. 

Antony  Ashton  says  of  her1: 

She  was  of  a  lovely  height,  with  dark  brown  hair  and  eyebrows,  black, 
sparkling  eyes,  a  fresh  blushy  complexion  ;  and  whenever  she  exerted 
herself  she  had  an  involuntary  flushing  in  her  breast,  neck  and  face, 
having  continuously  a  cheerful  aspect,  and  a  fine  set  of  even  white 
teeth,  never  making  an  exit  but  that  she  left  the  audience  in  an 
imitation  of  her  pleasing  countenance. 

Cibber  adds  "  that  it  was  even  a  fashion  among  the  gay 
and  young  to  have  a  taste  or  tendre  for  Mrs.  Bracegirdle," 
that  other  dramatists  made  their  private  court  to  her  in 
fictitious  characters  ;  and  further  that  "  if  anything  could 
excuse  that  desperate  extravagance  of  love,  that  almost 
frantic  passion  of  Lee's  '  Alexander  the  Great,'  it  must  have 
been  when  Mrs.  Bracegirdle  was  his  *  Statira.' ' 

1  "A  Brief  Supplement,"  etc. — i.e.  to  Colley  Gibber's  Lives  o'  the  Actors. 


LYCEUM  AND   OLYMPIC  99 

Part  of  Mrs.  Stirling's  task  was  precisely,  by  reciting  from 
that  "  Statira,"  so  to  work  upon  an  old  man's  feelings  as  to 
bring  the  drama  to  a  happy  conclusion.  This,  it  seems,  she 
successfully  accomplished,  showing  great  versatility  of  talent 
in  the  declamatory  dignity  of  the  stage  queen,  the  assumed 
vulgarity  of  the  actress,  and  the  vivacity  and  tenderness 
of  the  woman  in  her  natural  character. 

After  the  conclusion  of  the  Lyceum  engagement,  which 
seems  to  have  come  to  an  end  with  the  run  of  "  A  Happy 
Family " — with  Mme.  Vestris,  Mathews,  Buckstone  and 
Harley  also  in  the  cast — I  lose  sight  of  her  until  July,  when 
she  reappears  behind  the  scenes  at  Drury  Lane,  walking 
on,  or  taking  a  small  part,  upon  the  occasion  of  Macready's 
benefit  performance,  July  10,  1848,  previous  to  his  departure 
for  America. 

The  evening  was  a  compliment  to  the  great  actor,  almost 
without  precedent  in  the  later  history  of  the  stage.  The 
Queen  had  commanded  the  play,  and  visited  the  theatre 
in  state.  The  Queen  Dowager,  and  other  members  of  the 
Royal  Family,  were  also  present,  the  building  being  thronged 
with  persons  distinguished  in  the  public  life  of  the  day, 
and  in  the  higher  branches  of  literature  and  of  art.  Not 
since  the  great  assembly  of  rank  and  fashion  that  had 
gathered  to  do  honour  to  Garrick,1  had  such  a  tribute  of 
respect  and  admiration  been  offered  to  any  English  actor. 
For  Macready,  as  the  Examiner  had  written,2  was  not 
merely  the  greatest  English  actor  of  his  time,  he  repre- 
sented, in  its  poetical  and  national  aspects,  a  stage  that, 
by  his  own  private  character,  as  well  as  by  his  own 
public  achievements,  he  had  uplifted  and  exalted.  As  our 
leading  tragedian  he  was  to  be  succeeded  ultimately  by 
Samuel  Phelps ;  but,  with  all  due  recognition  of  Phelps' 
good  work  for  the  theatre — especially  at  Sadler's  Wells — 
no  man  of  Macready's  calibre  was  to  appear  until  Henry 
Irving  took  the  vacant  place  at  the  head  of  our  national 
drama.  It  is  interesting  to  note  that  the  play  chosen  by 
Queen  Victoria,  upon  that  occasion,  was  "  Henry  VIII,"  the 
"  Cardinal "  being  one  of  Macready's  best  representations, 

1  His  farewell  appearance  June  10,  1776,  as  "Don  Felix"  in  'The 
Wonder."  a  October  18,  1845. 


100     THE  STAGE  LIFE  OF  MRS.   STIRLING 

as  it  was  also  in  the  case  of  Henry  Irving.  Both  actors 
were  great  enough  to  interpret  worthily  the  grandeur  and 
nobility  of  the  character.1 

From  "  Henry  VIII,"  with  Macready,  at  Drury  Lane,  to 
Leigh  Murray's  company,  with  light  comedy,  at  the 
Olympic,  seems  something  of  a  descent ;  but  to  that  little 
theatre,  then  standing  in  Wych  Street,  our  story  now 
takes  us. 

It  was  not  then  a  prosperous  theatre.  Indeed,  it  had 
fallen  upon  evil  days,  and  was  near  its  end ;  yet  there  was 
in  store  for  it  a  last  burst  of  success,  of  which  Mrs.  Stirling 
was  to  be  one  of  the  most  potent  causes.  After  some 
sixteen  years  of  laborious  striving,  with  many  failures, 
and  many  set-backs,  her  patience  and  industry  are,  at  last, 
to  be  rewarded.  She  has  reached  the  period  of  her  life 
to  which,  in  later  years,  she  was  to  look  back,  as  the  most 
pleasant  and  successful  of  her  long  and  arduous  career — 
these  coming  seasons  at  the  old  and  new  Olympic,  and 
the  New  Strand. 

Quite  unpretentious  was  Courtnay's  little  play — taken 
from  a  story  in  the  Family  Herald — "  Time  Tries  All," a 
with  which,  as  "  Laura  Leeson,"  her  first  appearance  at  the 
Olympic  ushered  in  those  days  of  complete  success.  It 
was  nothing  more  than  a  neatly  written,  simple,  sentimental, 
domestic  comedy,  concerning  a  wilful  young  heroine,  who  re- 
jects her  true  lover,  and  drives  him  abroad,  only  to  discover 
— not  too  late,  of  course — that  he  is,  after  all,  the  man  of 
her  mind.  There  was  nothing  striking  in  dialogue  or 
situation — only  ease,  elegance,  and  such  negative  virtue  as 
enabled  the  actress,  and  actors  too,  so  to  imbue  the  simple 
scenes  with  truth,  that  "  though  you  are  untouched  by  any 
reading  of  the  lines,"  when  Mrs.  Stirling  gave  the  author 
to  the  public,  bearded  men  were  seen  crying.  This  is  a 
triumph  of  art,  of  which  only  great  players  are  capable ; 
and  few  there  are  to-day  who  can  do  it.  Not  many  then 
were  so  endowed.  Mrs.  Stirling  was  one  of  them  ;  another 

1  Miss  Ellen  Terry  recently  told  the  writer  that  she  considered  "  Wolsey  " 
to  be  Henry  Irving's  best  part. 

8  Courtnay  had  succeeded  Douglas  Jerrold  as  the  tame  playwright  of 
the 


LYCEUM  AND   OLYMPIC  101 


was  Macready,  whose  genius  also  could  breulhb  iinith':  a 
vitality,  even  into  figures  so  artificial  as  "  Werner  "  and 
"  Virginius." 

Concerning  "  Laura  Leeson  "  the  press  were  more  than 
usually  enthusiastic,  one  of  the  most  laudatory  and  pertinent 
critiques  being  that  of  the  Era,1  which  ran  : 

Mrs.  Stirling  hits  off  the  bewitching  and  wayward  tormentor  to  the 
life.  She  is  too  beautiful  to  be  condemned  ;  too  clever  to  be  contra- 
dicted .  .  .  the  drawing  lesson  she  gives  to  her  lover,  while  ignorant 
of  the  obligation  she  is  under  to  him,  is  an  inimitable  piece  of 
acting. 

But  there  was  more  in  "  Laura  Leeson's  "  success  than 
just  that.  This  little  comedy,  and  one  or  two  others  that 
were  to  follow  it,  are  landmarks,  not  merely  in  Mrs.  Stirling's 
career,  but  —  regarded  from  the  right  point  of  view  —  in  the 
history  of  nineteenth-century  drama.  We  have  discussed, 
in  a  previous  chapter,  the  impossibility  in  the  theatre,  as 
elsewhere,  of  putting  new  wine  into  old  bottles.  For  the 
successful  establishment  of  the  more  developed  stage,  we 
need  always  those  long  initiations.  Plays,  players,  and 
audiences  must  be  wrought,  little  by  little,  towards  the 
change  ;  and  I  do  not  think  that  we  shall  be  far  from  the 
truth  if,  even  in  such  simple  plays  as  "  Time  Tries  All,"  so 
perfectly  acted,  with  all  the  ease  and  facility  of  great  art,  we 
claim  to  see  the  earliest  stilly  dawn  of  the  newer  and  more 
natural  style,  that,  beginning  definitely  with  the  comedies 
of  Robertson,  and  the  stage  art  of  the  Bancrofts,  was  to 
come  to  fruition  in  the  last  quarter  of  the  century. 

Whatever  their  place  or  importance  in  the  history  of  the 
stage,  these  unpretentious  comedies  were  certainly  popular 
successes,  and  that  success  was  due  first  to  the  skill  of  Mrs. 
Stirling,  and  in  part  also  to  the  talent  of  Leigh  Murray,  who, 
after  being  first  stage  manager  to  Stocqueler,  had  become 
sole  manager  of  the  Olympic,  and  was  now  responsible  for 
the  theatrical  policy  that  introduced  such  happy  trifles 
as  "  Time  Tries  All,"  and  "  First  Champagne." 

Leigh  Murray,  as  an  actor,  was  generally  considered  to 
be  the  best  representative  of  juveniles  then  upon  the  stage. 

1  September  10,  1848. 


102     THE   STAGE  LIFE   OF  MRS.   STIRLING 

But  he  was  snore  than  that  word  conveys  ;  he  was  a  versatile 
player,  well  practised  in  catching  the  distinctive  and  salient 
points  of  character,  excellent  in  parts,  calling  for  a  patois 
or  a  foreign  accent,  and  clever  at  hitting  off,  with  evident 
gusto,  any  individual  peculiarity.  The  man  was  no  mere 
imitator.  He  could  personate  and  portray.  His  merits 
were  his  own,  and,  like  those  of  some  plays  he  favoured, 
they  were  partly  negative,  in  that  he  avoided  carefully 
too  much  conventionality  and  mannerism.  Murray  was  a 
scholar  and  a  gentleman,1  and,  in  consequence,  a  friend  of 
Macready. 

Altogether  we  may  regard  him  as  a  careful,  zealous, 
energetic,  sincere,  and  essentially  natural  actor,  of  the 
newer  school,  conforming  thoroughly  with  the  newer  type 
of  play  he  introduced.  His  company  liked  him,  were  on 
good  terms  with  him,  and  appreciated  his  work,  as  proved 
by  the  presentation  of  a  silver  tankard  to  their  chief,  at 
the  close  of  the  season. 

Of  the  plays  written  during  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  very  few  remain  in  the  permanent  repertoires 
of  our  stage.  One  drama,  at  least,  however,  has  come  near 
to  doing  so,  namely  Bulwer's  "  The  Lady  of  Lyons, "  which, 
though  technically  inferior  to  the  same  author's  "  Money," 
appealed  more  to  the  public  taste,  and,  being  much  more 
easily  put  on,  has  long  been  a  stand-by  for  theatrical  benefit 
matine*es.  Nor  is  it  yet  quite  extinct,  for  Mr.  F.  J.  Nettle- 
fold  courageously,  though  unsuccessfully,  revived  it  at 
the  Scala,  during  the  autumn  of  1919.  Despite  its  obvious 
crudities,  the  drama  has  two  acting  parts  always  alluring 
to  players  endowed  with  the  breadth  of  style  essential  to 
their  portrayal.  From  "  Laura  Leeson,"  wayward  and 
bewitching,  Mrs.  Stirling  passed  to  "  Pauline,"  the  proud 
and  passionate,  with  Leigh  Murray  as  "  Claude."  This 
she  followed  with  the  lead  in  "  Patronage,"  a  play  adapted 
from  a  French  comedy,  "  La  Prote*ge*e  sans  le  Savior  "  :  then 
came  "  Katharine  "  again,  in  "  Katharine  and  Petruchia  " 
— "played  as  though  the  part  were  written  for  her" — 

1  My  mother  said  of  him  :  "A  moat  charming  and  gentlemanly  actor." 
He  was  a  frequent  visitor  at  my  grandmother's  house,  Arundel  Street, 
Strand. 


LYCEUM  AND   OLYMPIC  108 

"  Lucille,"  in  a  sentimental  domestic  drama,  also,  as  usual, 
from  the  French.  It  was  Mrs.  Keeley's  old  character, 
but  it  suited  Mrs.  Stirling,  who,  according  to  the  Era,  was 
exceedingly  natural  and  finely  impassioned. 

Despite  the  ephemeral  quality  of  the  majority  of  her 
roles,  the  leading  lady  at  the  Olympic  was  enhancing 
her  reputation  with  every  week,  and  adding  greatly  to  her 
popularity.  Of  her  next  performance,  "  Julia  Amor,"  in 
a  farce,  "  Love  and  Charity,"  the  critic  of  the  Era  writes  :  x 

This  lady  has  become,  and  deservedly  so,  an  enormous  favourite  here, 
as  she  is  everywhere.  Indeed,  we  know  not  any  whom  the  lessee 
could  have  selected  more  capable  of  sustaining  by  her  talent  the 
reputation  of  the  theatre  in  such  style  of  pieces. 

Two  qualities  of  her  acting  the  work  she  was  now  doing 
enabled  her  fully  to  display.  We  mean  tenderness — the  ten- 
derness that  some  had  failed  to  see  in  her  "  Desdemona  " — 
and  vivacity ;  and  in  no  r61e  undertaken  by  her  throughout 
her  career  did  that  second  quality  find  more  scope  than  in 
her  last  and  greatest  success  at  the  Olympic,  as  "  Cousin 
Cherry."  The  play — adapted  from  a  French  Vaudeville, 
"  Le  Moulin  a  Paroles  " — was  put  on,  no  doubt,  for  the  express 
purpose  of  exploiting  that  side  of  Mrs.  Stirling's  talent ;  and 
it  succeeded  admirably  well.  "  Cousin  Cherry  "  is  the  belle  of 
the  village,  and  its  shining  light,  the  acknowledged  authority 
upon  all  matters,  and  upon  every  topic,  whether  sacred, 
secular,  social,  or  political.  She  is  the  lady  oracle  of  the 
district,  to  whose  mandates  all  pay  the  most  perfect  obedience, 
and  before  whose  shrine  all  bow  in  humble  submission. 
She  is,  moreover,  the  accredited  and  undisputed  dictatress 
upon  the  family  affairs  of  the  Primroses,  concerning  which 
she  is  inordinately  inquisitive,  and  extravagantly  loquacious  ; 
her  merry  little  tongue  resting  never  from  morning  till 
night. 

But  her  tongue  having  an  edge,  as  well  as  a  facility, 
she  begins,  at  last,  by  force  of  circumstance,  to  realize  that 
her  endless  prattle  arouses  at  least  as  much  dislike  as 
admiration.  This  discovery  brings  about  the  best  situation 
in  the  play,  when,  after  a  vain  attempt,  on  the  damsel's 
1  November  19,  1848. 


104     THE   STAGE  LIFE   OF   MRS.   STIRLING 

part,  to  stem  the  torrent  of  her  words,  her  volubility,  in  the 
end,  breaks  down  all  obstacles,  and  sweeps  on  the  stronger 
for  its  check. 

Such  a  part  gave  opportunities  to  an  actress  of  the  Stirling 
type ;  and  she  took  them.  The  Era  described  her  best. 

To  say  that  Mrs.  Stirling  was  a  charming  representative  of  "  Cousin 
Cherry  "  would  be  only  faint  praise  ;  the  arch  vivacity  and  nawett 
she  threw  into  the  part,  the  sparkling  espUglerie  with  which  she 
invested  the  vain,  capricious,  yet  kind-hearted  coquette,  were  beyond 
all  praise  :  naturally  truthful  throughout,  we  saw,  not  Mrs.  Stirling, 
but,  in  "  Cousin  Cherry,"  a  relative  that  would  thaw  the  heart  of  the 
most  inflexible  stoic  that  ever  existed. 

Let  the  reader  note  that  "  not  Mrs.  Stirling."  As  Charles 
Reade  was  to  observe  later,1  the  actress  had  learned  the  great 
importance  to  an  impersonation,  of  first  appearing  before 
the  audience,  not  as  a  star  performer,  but  in  the  character 
to  be  portrayed  2 — a  merit  which,  upon  this  occasion,  did 
not  escape  the  critic  of  the  Theatrical  Times.3 

In  "  Cousin  Cherry  "  Mrs.  Stirling  comes  on  in  her  own  delightful 
way,  pulling  a  greyhound  with  her,  and  setting  all  the  house  at  once 
in  good  humour. 

Many  others  praised  her  rattling  vivacity ;  and  forty- 
seven  years  later,  in  an  obituary  notice  of  Lady  Gregory, 
— as  she  had  become — The  Times*  referred  to  her  engage- 
ment at  the  Olympic,  as  being  made  important  by  her 
acting  in  this  part. 

Then,  on  Thursday,  March  29,  1849,  occurred  a  disaster 
all  too  common  in  theatrical  annals — the  passing  of  a  play- 
house in  fire.  Under  a  cloud — though  not  of  smoke — the 
Olympic  had  been  almost  continuously  since  its  erection, 
some  fifty  years  before,  by  that  enterprising  theatrical 
speculator,  Philip  Astley,  upon  a  site  formerly  occupied 
by  the  mansion  of  the  Earl  of  Craven,  husband  of  Elizabeth, 
titular  Queen  of  Bohemia — and  only  sister  to  Charles  I — 
who,  returning  to  England  at  the  Restoration,  was  then 
privately  married  to  the  Earl. 

1  See  infra,  p.  134. 

2  Lucien  Guitry  possesses  this  faculty  in  a  very  high  degree. 
8  November  25,  1848.  *  December  31,  1895. 


LYCEUM  AND   OLYMPIC  105 

Obscurely  placed  in  Wych  Street,  between  Craven 
Buildings  and  Newcastle  Street,  its  occupiers  had  always 
struggled  ineffectually  to  make  their  house  rank  in  fashion 
and  popularity  with  other  West-End  theatres.  All  had 
failed,  excepting  only  El  listen,  round  about  1818.  and  Mme. 
Vestris,  from  1830-39.  The  majority  of  its  managements 
— until  Spicer  and  Davidson  took  it  in  1847 — -had  been 
of  poor  quality,  from  the  dramatic  standpoint ;  and  its 
audiences,  from  time  to  time,  had  been  regaled  with  musical, 
equestrian,  and  even  pugilistic  entertainment.  Now,  in  a 
golden  sunset  of  prosperity,  the  old  Olympic  was  to  pass. 

At  half-past  five  upon  that  Thursday  afternoon,  Mrs. 
Stirling's  husband,  Edward  Stirling,  the  stage-manager, 
was  standing  near  the  wings.  The  gas-fitter  was  trying  the 
lights  on  the  prompt  side,  when — as  is  supposed — the 
curtain  of  cotton  velvet,  lined  with  calico,  which  had  not 
been  properly  festooned  up  out  of  the  way,  was  blown  on 
to  the  light,  and  immediately  caught  fire.  Stirling  did 
what  he  could,  with  buckets  of  water  ;  but  the  flames  spread 
with  great  rapidity,  and  though  the  dresses  for  the  night 
were  saved,  the  theatre,  in  a  few  hours,  was  completely 
destroyed,  and  the  company  rendered  professionally  homeless. 

The  Farrens  were  then  holding  an  agreement  for  the 
Olympic  Theatre,  so  Mrs.  Stirling  took  service  under  Henry 
Farren  at  the  New  Strand,  to  which  house  Leigh  Murray 
accompanied  her.  Its  fallen  fortunes  they  were  jointly 
to  assist  in  raising,  as  they  had  raised  those  of  the  old 
Olympic.  There,  from  June  to  September,  she  appeared 
in  four  or  more  different  plays,  of  which  the  two  most  note- 
worthy were  "  Hearts  are  Trumps,"  by  Mark  Lemon,  and 
"Where  there's  a  Will  there's  A  Way,"  by  J.  M.  Morton, 
in  which  the  newcomer  played  "  Princess  Francesca." 

In  a  very  short  time  the  public  began  to  render  justice 
to  the  talents  of  the  company  at  the  Strand,  now  "  a  hot- 
bed in  which  farces  sprang  up  like  mushrooms,"  to  endure 
in  general  only  for  a  mushroom  space. 

It  was  not  to  be  all  farce,  however,  for,  after  a  short 
illness,  during  which  her  parts  were  taken  by  Miss  Gray 
and  Mrs.  Leigh  Murray,  there  followed  an  event  of  great 
importance  in  Mrs.  Stirling's  theatrical  career. 


CHAPTER    IX 

"  ADRIENNE    LEGOUVREUR  " 

1849 

Adrienne  Lecouvreur,"  Mrs.  Stirling's  best  tragic  part — Rachel  in  the 
r61e — Oxenford's  version  put  on  by  the  Farrens  at  the  Strand — 
Difficulties  of  an  English  rendering — Quotations  from  French  classics 
unfamiliar  to  an  English  audience — Mrs.  Stirling's  qualifications  for 
"Adrienne" — Favourable  press  comments — Rachel  plays  "Adrienne" 
at  St.  James's  —  The  two  performances  compared — "Miss  Hard- 
castle  " — "  lolanthe  "  in  "  King  Renews  Daughter  " — Great  success 
in  this  poetical  play. 

ON  October  9,  1849,  Mrs.  Stirling  played,  for  the  first  time, 
the  part  that,  in  after  years,  she  was  to  look  upon  as  her 
best  in  tragedy,  and  would  sometimes  speak  of  as,  in  many 
respects,  the  best  performance  of  her  life.  Artists  often  say 
of  themselves — and  it  is  often  said  of  them — that  they  are 
incapable  of  passing  sound  judgment  upon  their  own  en- 
deavours. Not  everyone  will  accept  the  limitation  as  true ; 
but  in  the  case  of  executive  performers  generally — painters, 
sculptors,  actors,  and  musicians — it  is  certain  that  a  majority 
— probably  a  large  majority — possess  the  analytical  skill 
combined  with  power  of  detachment  enough  to  enable 
them  to  gauge,  as  well  as  any  other  critic,  the  quality  of  their 
own  work.  Macready  could  do  so,  and,  in  the  diary,  passes 
upon  his  own  performances  every  variety  of  critical  judg- 
ment, from  complete  condemnation,  through  indifference, 
to  unstinted  praise.  Not  public  applause  only,  nor 
favourable  press  comment,  but  the  artist's  own  con- 
science, is  the  alter  ego  that  can  stand  aloof,  and  appraise 
judicially  the  value  of  his  achievement.  And  the  verdict 
of  posterity,  at  last,  will,  in  general,  concur  with  his 
own. 

Edmund  Kean  knew  that  the  third  act  of  "  Othello  "  was 

106 


"ADRIENNE  LECOUVREUR  "  107 

his  "  most  satisfactory  performance  "  ;  and  posterity  has 
endorsed  that  judgment.  Mrs.  Stirling  thought  that  her 
best  serious  work  was  done  in  "  Adrienne  Lecouvreur," l  and 
the  probabilities  are  that  she  was  right. 

Even  to  those  who,  like  the  writer,  never  saw  Mrs. 
Stirling  upon  the  stage,  a  reason  for  her  legitimate  pride 
in  this  performance  of  "  Adrienne"  is  not  far  to  seek.  When 
she  took  up  the  part  in  London,  the  English  actress,  if  not 
competing,  was  directly  challenging  comparison  with  the 
leading  tragedienne  of  the  day,  perhaps  of  all  time,  Mdlle. 
Rachel,2  for  whom  the  play  was  written,  whose  favourite 
r61e  it  became,  and  to  whose  genius  its  success  was  largely 
due. 

"  Adrienne  Lecouvreur,"  considered  from  our  modern 
point  of  view,  is  no  masterpiece.  It  is  crude  in  character- 
drawing,  stagey,  and  artificial  to  the  last  degree ;  but, 
constructed  with  all  Scribe's  technical  deftness,  it  tells — as 
do  the  highly  coloured  dramas  of  his  successor,  Sardou 
— an  intensely  dramatic  tale  of  pride  and  passion,  that 
provides  powerful  acting  scenes,  for  players  competent  to 
take  advantage  of  them. 

The  French  version,  by  Scribe  and  Legouve*,  was  played, 
for  the  first  time,  at  the  Theatre  Fran£ais,  on  April  14,  1849, 

1  Adrienne  Lecouvreur,  the  celebrated  French  tragedienne  and  intimate 
friend  of  Voltaire,  made  her  first  appearance  at  the  Come*die  Fran$aise, 
May  14,  1717,  when  in  her  twenty-seventh  year.  She  died  suddenly,  on' 
March  17,  1780,  two  days  after  playing  the  part  of  "  Jocaste."  Rumour 
accounted  for  her  death  by  asserting  that,  while  playing  "  Phedre," 
Adrienne  saw,  one  night,  in  a  box,  the  Duchesse  de  Bouillon,  a  lady  known 
to  be  intimate  with  Maurice,  Comte  de  Saxe,  whom  Adrienne  loved  and 
had  befriended.  The  actress,  stung  by  jealousy,  recited  certain  of  her  lines 
to  the  Duchess,  when  the  audience,  by  their  clamour,  showed  that  they 
understood  the  allusion.  The  Duchess  revenged  herself  by  poisoning 
Adrienne.  Upon  this  legend,  which  is  supported  by  no  evidence  whatever, 
is  based  the  plot  of  both  French  and  English  versions  of  the  drama. 

8  Rachel,  born  in  1820,  was  then  twenty-nine  years  old,  and  at  the 
height  of  her  fame.  "  Adrienne  Lecouvreur "  was  her  first  prose  part, 
and  the  first  step  out  of  her  classical  repertoire.  She  played  it  for  the 
first  time  at  the  Theatre  Francais,  April  14,  1849.  Her  last  appearance 
in  it  was  at  Charleston,  U.S.A.,  on  December  17,  1856,  when  she  was 
already  mortally  ill.  She  died  at  Cannet,  near  Cannes,  January  3,  1858. 
"Adrienne"  is  the  only  part  devised  for  her  that  has  kept  a  place  in  the 
theatre.  The  writer  saw  it  billed  at  Nantes,  May  1920. 

Mme.  Sarah  Bernhardt  has  also  made  the  part  her  own,  but  Matthew 
Arnold,  writing  in  1879,  expresses  the  opinion  that  Rachel  is  intellectually 
far  above  Bernhardt.  "  She  began  almost  where  Mdlle.  Sarah  Bernhardt 
ended."  Will  posterity  endorse  that  verdict  ? 


108     THE   STAGE  LIFE   OF  MRS.   STIRLING 

with  Rachel,  then  at  the  height  of  her  fame,  in  the  title 
part.  Six  months  later,  while  the  strong  emotions  roused 
by  Rachel's  performance  were  yet  fresh  in  public  memory, 
the  Farrens  played  their  coup.  They  billed  "  The  Reigning 
Favourite,"1  an  English  version  of  "Adrienne,"  with  Mrs. 
Stirling  in  Rachel's  part.  Oxenford,  as  translator  and 
adapter,  was  a  sound  choice.  He  had  done  "  The  Tragedy 
Queen"  (Mrs.  Bracegirdle)  for  Mrs.  Stirling  at  the  Lyceum, 
and  was  experienced  at  such  work.  In  this  instance  also  he 
acquitted  himself  well,  maintained  the  play  at  a  reasonably 
high  standard  of  literature  and  poetry,  and,  by  compressing 
his  version,  greatly  aided  the  English  actress's  chances  of 
success,  if,  as  I  suppose,  lack  of  power  to  sustain  was  one  of 
her  weaknesses  in  tragic  work. 

Yet  there  still  remained  many  and  grave  disadvantages, 
from  which  there  was  no  escape  for  any  English  rendering 
of  the  play — this  one,  in  particular,  that  the  French  authors 
had  cleverly  woven  into  the  fabric  of  "  Adrienne's  "  r61e 
passages  from  the  French  classics,  perfectly  familiar,  and 
therefore  welcome,  to  Parisian  audiences,  but  robbed  of 
half  their  significance  in  a  London  theatre.  In  Act  II, 
for  example,  occurs  a  charming  passage  between  the 
lovers,  when  "Maurice"  produces  the  bullet-pierced  copy 
of  La  Fontaine's  fables,  that  "Adrienne"  had  given 
him,  whereby  to  improve  his  scanty  knowledge  of  her 
language. 

ADRIENNE.  Et  ce  petit  exemplaire  de  La  Fontaine,  que  je  vous 
avals  donne*  en  partant  ? 

MAURICE.  II  ne  m'a  jamais  quitte*  .  .  .  il  etait  la,  toil  jours  la 
...  a  telles  enseignes  qu'il  m'a  sauve*  d'une  balle  dont  il  a  garde* 
1'empreinte.  Voyez  plutot ! 

ADRIENNE.    Et  vous  1'avez  lu  ? 

MAURICE.    Ma  foi,  non. 

ADRIENNE.  Pas  mSine  la  fable  des  deux  pigeons,  que  je  vous 
avals  recommande'e  ? 

MAURICE.  C'est  vrai  .  .  .  mais  pardonnez  moi,  ce  n'est  qu'ime 
fable. 

1  An  earlier  English  adaptation  had  been  made  by  Theodore  Martin,  in 
which  Helen  Faucit,  Lady  Martin,  appeared  as  "Adrienne,"  at  Manchester, 
with  great  success.  Sir  Theodore  Martin,  in  his  biography  of  Helen  Faucit, 
does  not  mention  Mrs.  Stirling,  saying  merely  that  Kachel  "  had  hitherto 
been  identified  with  the  part,"  p.  233. 


"ADRIENNE  LECOUVREUR  "  109 

ADRIENNE  (d/un  air  de  reproche).    Une  fable  !  vous  ne  voyez  la 
qu'une  fable  ? 

(rtcitant)    "  Deux  pigeons  s'aimaient  .  .  . 

(avec  expression)  d'araour  tendre." 
MAURICE.    Comme  nous  ! 
ADRIENNE.    "  L'un  d'eux,  s'ennuyant  au  logis, 

Fut  assez  fou  pour  entreprendre 

Un  voyage  en  loin  tain  pays." 
MAURICE.    Comme  moi ! 
ADRIENNE.    "  L'autre  lui  dit :   Qu'allez-vous  faire  ? 

Voulez  vous  quitter  votre  frere  ? 

L'absence  est  le  plus  grand  des  maux. 

Non  pas  pour  vous,  cruel !  " 
MAURICE.    Est-ce  qu'il  y  a  cela  ? 
ADRIENNE  (continuant).    "  Helas  !  dirai-je,  il  pleut ! 

Mon  frere  a-t-il  tout  ce  q'il  veut, 

Bon  souper,  bon  gite,  et  le  reste  ?  " 
MAURICE  (vivement).    Le  reste  !    Ah  !  apres  ?  apres  ? 
ADRIENNE  (souriant).    Apres  ?  .  .  .  (avec  finesse).    Ah  !  cela  vous 
interesse  done,  Monsieur? 


Now  all  this  is  tender  and  charming,  even  to  an  English 
ear ;  but  it  was  doubly  beautiful,  and  doubly  significant,  to 
an  audience  who  had  read  that  same  fable  to  their  children, 
or,  as  children,  had  heard  it  read  to  them.  As  Rachel 
spoke  those  words,  with  exquisite  grace  and  simplicity, 
they  possessed,  henceforth,  a  fuller  meaning  in  all  French 
ears  upon  whom  they  fell ;  but  upon  an  English  audience, 
in  translation,  they  were  wellnigh  lost. 

Again,  at  the  climax  of  the  play,  Scribe  makes  use, 
once  more,  and  most  effectively,  of  the  same  device. 
"  Maurice,"  released  from  prison  through  the  generous 
intervention  of  "  Adrienne  " — who  has  raised  on  her  jewels 
the  amount  of  his  debt — and  believing  the  treacherous 
*'  Princesse  de  Bouillon  "  to  be  his  benefactress,  comes  to  her 
house,  to  thank  her.  There  he  meets  "  Adrienne,"  who  has 
been  invited,  that  same  evening,  to  recite  before  a  large 
company.  The  moment  comes ;  and  the  actress,  furious 
at  the  attentions  paid  by  "Maurice"  to  "Mme.  de  Bouilbn," 
revenges  herself  upon  her  supposed  rival  by  reciting  at  her 
the  well-known  lines  of  "  Phedre  "  to  "  Oenone  "  : l 

i  "  Ph6dre,"  Act  III,  Sue  3. 


110     THE  STAGE  LIFE  OF  MRS.  STIRLING 

ADEIENNE  (rtcitant  avec  une  agitation  et  une  fi&vre  toujours  crois- 
sante,  Us  yeux  fixts  sur  la  princesse,  qui  se  penche  plusieurs  fois  tur 
Vtpaule  de  Maurice  et  lui  parle  bas  avec  affection). 
"  Juste  ciel  .  .  .  qu'ai  je  fait  aujourd'hui  ? 
Mon  e*poux  va  parattre,  et  son  flls  avec  lui ! 
Je  verrai  le  te"moin  de  ma  flamme  adultere 
Observant  de  quel  front  j'ose  aborder  son  pere. 
Le  coeur  grog  de  soupirs  qu'il  n'a  point  e"coutes 

(regardant  Maurice). 

L'oeil  humide  de  pleurs  par  1'ingrat  rebutes, 
Pense-tu  que,  sensible  a  Phonneur  de  The"se*e, 
H  lui  cache  1'ardeur  dont  je  suis  embrasde  ? 
Laissera-t-il  trahir  et  son  pere  et  son  roi  ? 
Pourra-t-il  contenir  1'horreur  qu'il  a  pour  moi  ? 
II  se  tairait  en  vain  !  je  sais  mes  perfidies, 
Oenone  !  .  .  .  et  ne  suis  point  de  ces  femmes  hardies, 

(hors  cTelle  meme  et  s'avancant  vers  la  Princesse) 
Qui  goutant  dans  le  crime  une  honteuse  paix, 
Ont  su  se  faire  un  front  qui  ne  rougit  jamais  !  " 
(Elle  continue  a  s'avancer  vers  la  Princesse,  qu'elle 
dtsigne  du  doigt  .  .  .  pendant  que  les  dames  et 
seigneurs  se  levent  comme  effraye's  de  cette  scene).1 

Now  this  provides  a  scene  strong  both  in  situation  and 
expression ;  but,  though  Oxenford  has  done  his  best,  this 
version  of  the  closing  outburst : 

For  I  am  one  of  those  who  cannot  feign ; 
Not  one  of  those  who,  sinning,  shows  no  trace, 
Blest  with  the  gift  of  an  unblushing  face, 

will  not  bear  comparison  with  the  directness,  power,  and 

passion  of 

Oenone  .  .  .  et  ne  suis  point  de  ces  femmes  hardies, 
Qui,  goutant  dans  le  crime  une  honteuse  paix, 
Ont  su  se  faire  un  front  qui  ne  rougit  jamais. 

1  Oxenford's  version  of  the  passage  is  as  follows : 
Oh,  fatal  is  the  deed  which  I  have  done, 
I  must  behold  my  husband  with  his  son ; 
The  youth  aware  of  my  unholy  fire, 
Will  watch  the  face  with  which  I  meet  his  sire, 
Knowing  my  heart  swells  with  unheeded  sighs, 
Unheeded  tears  still  glisten  in  these  eyes. 
Will  he,  indifferent  to  his  father's  name, 
Conceal  that  love  which  is  my  crime,  my  shame  ? 
Conceal  the  horror  which  he  feels  for  me — 
Betray  his  king  ?    No,  no — it  cannot  be. 
Nay  !  if  he  tried  to  shield  me — 'twould  be  vain, 
For  I  am  one  of  those  that  cannot  feign, 
Not  one  of  those  who,  sinning,  shows  no  trace, 
Blest  with  the  gift  of  an  unblushing  face  ! 


"ADRIENNE  LECOUVREUR  "  111 

Upon  "  ne  rougit  jamais,"  a  tragedienne  trained  in  declama- 
tion can  pour  out  all  her  strength ;  and  in  France  she  could 
do  it  with  correspondingly  heightened  effect,  upon  a  stage 
rival,  and  upon  an  audience  who,  we  may  suppose,  had 
heard  her  deliver  that  identical  passage  in  the  r61e  of 
"  Phedre." 

Against  all  such  disadvantages,  and  many  others,  the 
English  exponent  of  "Adrienne"  had  to  contend,  with  the 
counterpoise  only  in  her  favour — that  her  style,  graceful, 
natural,  subtle,  and  very  Latin  in  its  limpid  lucidity,  was 
essentially  of  the  French  school.1  Granted  this,  the  part 
remains  a  very  difficult  one.  Strong  passion  has  to  be 
displayed  in  many  scenes ;  but  in  none,  save  the  last,  is 
it  allowed  full  expression.2  Its  intensity,  therefore,  must 
be  indicated  and  suggested,  rather  than  fully  revealed. 
Only  in  the  death  scene,  when  "  Adrienne  "  has  breathed 
the  slow  and  subtle  poison  placed  by  her  rival  within  her 
lover's  bouquet,  can  her  agony  of  soul  find  vent. 

These  difficulties  Rachel's  English  follower  triumphantly 
overcame,  as  one  may  read  in  the  press  comments  of  the 
morrow.  That  of  The  Times  is  as  follows : 

Probably  Mrs.  Stirling  never  acted  so  finely  as  in  the  character 
of  "  Adrienne."  .  .  .  The  intelligence  with  which  she  seized  upon 
points  not  of  themselves  salient,  and  the  great  though  quiet  force 
with  which  she  gave  them,  was  admirable.  There  was  a  whole  history 
of  internal  emotion,  without  anything  like  violent  ebullition.  In  the 
cited  speeches  she  had  to  deliver  .  .  .  she  laboured  under  a  difficulty 
which  did  not  exist  on  the  Parisian  stage.  To  the  French  public 
these  speeches  are  all  familiar,  but  to  the  English  they  were  only 
rendered  significant  by  Mrs.  Stirling's  excellent  delivery.  The  part 
of  "  Michonnet,"  a  strange  mixture  of  comicality  and  pathos,  was 
beautifully  acted  by  Mr.  Farren.  The  success  of  the  drama  was 
unequivocal,  and  the  principal  actors  and  the  author  were  loudly 
called. 

This  verdict  the  Examiner  endorsed. 

Mrs.  Stirling  is  so  very  admirable  in  it  that  the  drama  may  be 
looked  upon  as  an  important  epoch  in  her  dramatic  career.  She 

1  I  incline  to  think  that  Mrs.  Stirling  had  some  French  blood  in  her  : 
Miss  Baylis  believes  that  she  was  Irish-Celt  on  one  side  of  her  family. 

a  In  the  French  version  "  Adrienne"  also  recites  passages  from  Corneille's 
"  Psyche," 


112     THE  STAGE  LIFE   OF  MRS.   STIRLING 

really  sustained  it,  lifting  it  up,  when  it  flagged  towards  the  begin- 
ning ;  and,  when  the  introductory  part  was  over,  giving  full  force 
to  the  great  recitation  scene. 

Here  we  may  anticipate  a  little,  by  adding  that  Rachel 
herself  played  the  part  for  the  first  time  in  England,  at 
St.  James's  Theatre,  on  July  8,  1850,  with  extraordinary 
success,  "  the  curtain  descending  upon  the  concluding 
tableau  amid  the  audible  sighs  and  sobs  of  the  audience." l 

The  event,  indeed,  created  something  of  a  sensation 
in  theatrical  London ;  but  the  management  of  the  little 
Strand,  nothing  daunted,  promptly  challenged  comparison, 
by  reviving  the  English  version.  One  evening  a  slim  young 
woman  was  observed  to  be  sitting  in  the  stalls,  and  frequently 
applauding  Mrs.  Stirling.  It  was  Mdlle.  Rachel  herself. 
What  her  detailed  impressions  of  the  performance  were, 
it  would  be  interesting  to  know.  That  the  two  renderings 
differed  greatly,  and  that  there  was  no  imitation,  and  that 
in  intensity  the  English  woman  did  not  approach  the  French 
tragedienne,  we  may  be  absolutely  sure.  Some  of  the 
critics,  therefore,  took  occasion  to  admonish  severely  the 
Strand  management,  for  thus  daring  to  rush  in. 

Mrs.  Stirling  is  unquestionably  an  accomplished  and  versatile 
actress,  and  has  no  superior  on  the  English  stage  in  many  parts  in 
which  she  has  achieved  deserved  popularity  :  she  cannot,  however, 
increase  her  reputation  by  competing  with  the  greatest  of  living 
artistes  in  this  part.  Had  we  seen  only  Mrs.  Stirling's  "  Adrienne 
Lecouvreur  "  we  should  have  pronounced  it  an  excellent  performance, 
exhibiting  great  variety  of  style,  and  powerful  development  of  passion  : 
but,  having  witnessed  Rachel  in  the  part,  we  must,  despite  our  nation- 
ality, confess  that  there  is  only  one  actress  in  the  world  who  can  really 
play  it.2 

This  is  honest  and  fair,  and  probably  expresses  the 
opinion  of  nine-tenths  of  those  who  saw  both  performances  ; 
yet  I  cannot  help  thinking  it  possible  that,  in  the  lighter 
touches  of  the  part — I  mean  especially  in  tenderness  and 
pathos — Mrs.  Stirling  was  at  least  Rachel's  equal,  if  not 
her  superior,  even  though  the  French  actress  eclipsed  her 
in  vehemence  and  in  passion.  Those  latter  qualities  in 

1  Sunday  Time*,  July  14,  1850.  2  Ibid,  July  6,  1851. 


"ADRIENNE  LECOUVREUR  "  113 

Rachel,  it  is  interesting  to  note,  did  not  wholly  please  all 
English  critics.  Macready,  in  his  diary,  July  9,  1847,  had 
written : 

Went  to  see  Rachel  in  **  Phddre."  It  was  a  very  striking  performance, 
all  intensity  ;  all  in  a  spirit  of  vehemence  and  fury,  that  made  me  feel 
a  want  of  keeping.  I  could  have  fancied  a  more  self-contained  per- 
formance, more  passionate  fondness,  not  fury,  in  her  love,  and  more 
pathos.  I  could  imagine  a  performance  exciting  more  pity  for  the 
character  than  she  inspired,  and  equal  effect  in  the  scenes  of  rage 
and  despair. 

The*ophile  Gautier,  moreover,  had  written :  "  Rachel  fut 
froide  comme  Pantiquite."  These  comments  are  some- 
what paradoxical ;  yet  one  wonders  whether  Rachel  did 
not,  on  occasion,  tear  her  passion  to  tatters,  and  lose  in 
tenderness  what  she  gained  in  intensity?  But  we  may 
not  push  too  far  a  comparison  between  actresses  whom  we 
have  not  seen. 

Having  here  touched  tragedy,  and  gained  a  popular 
success  in  a  serious  play,  it  might  have  been  supposed  that 
Mrs.  Stirling,  henceforth,  would  be  seen  more  often  in 
dramas  that  would  draw  upon,  and  so  develop,  her  tragic 
power,  This  was  so  ;  but  only  to  a  limited  extent,  because 
the  Farrens  always  relied  principally  upon  lighter  work 
for  their  financial  success,  and  also  for  the  reason  that  we 
lacked,  and  were  to  continue  to  lack,  playwrights  and 
plays  capable  of  providing  the  necessary  medium.  Mrs. 
Stirling's  versatility,  moreover,  was,  in  this  respect,  a  handicap 
to  her.  The  actress  who  can  "  do  anything,"  is  naturally 
given  everything  to  do  ;  and  the  lady  herself  had  no  par- 
ticular desire  to  specialize.  All  was  fish  that  came  to 
her  net. 

With  the  close  of  the  year  she  was  given  two  parts  that 
pleased  her:  "Miss  Hardcastle,"  in  "She  Stoops  to 
Conquer,"  December  1,  1849,  followed,  on  the  llth,  by  one 
of  the  most  delicately  fragrant  little  productions  of  the 
century,  a  versified  translation,  by  Sir  Theodore  Martin,  of 
a  play  from  the  Danish  of  Henrik  Hertz,  entitled  "  King 
Renews  Daughter."  l  The  monarch  in  question  being  "  Good 

1  Revived  a  few  years  ago  at  the  Old  Vic,  with  Miss  Sybil  Thorndyke 
as  "  lolanthe." 

8 


114     THE   STAGE  LIFE   OF  MRS.   STIRLING 

King  Rene,"  the  aesthetic  and  dilettante  prince,  whose 
portrait  is  still  to  be  seen  carved  upon  the  cathedral  doors 
of  Aix,  and  whose  memories  yet  linger  pleasantly  among 
the  sunny  vine-lands  of  Provence.  The  play,  which  had 
proved  a  triumphant  success  on  the  continent,  was  originally 
translated  for  Miss  Faucit,  and  should  have  been  produced 
in  Dublin,  for  the  season  of  1848-49 :  that  lady's  illness, 
however,  necessitated  a  postponement,  and  ultimately, 
with  her  permission,  it  was  put  on,  instead,  at  the  Strand, 
where  Mrs.  Stirling  replaced  Miss  Faucit  as  the  blind  princess, 
"  lolanthe." 

The  success  of  the  venture  was  as  great  as  could  have 
been  expected,  seeing  that  the  little  idyll  is  of  the  lightest 
texture,  almost  wholly  devoid  of  dramatic  quality,  and 
dependent  for  success  upon  its  limpid,  lyrical  beauty,  the 
atmosphere  of  mediaeval  romance  in  which  it  is  conceived, 
and,  of  course,  upon  the  ability  of  the  players  worthily  to 
interpret  the  author's  poetry.  This  Mrs.  Stirling  was  able 
to  do,  throughout  a  part  which,  in  its  simplicity,  innocence, 
and  idealism,  was  as  far  removed  as  any  r61e  could  be  from 
the  passionate  intensity  of  "  Adrienne."  "  This  pleasing 
little  Danish  drama,"  says  the  Examiner,  "  has  elicited  a 
new  phase  of  Mrs.  Stirling's  versatility  and  talent."  It  is 
pleasant,  moreover,  to  have  to  record  her  appearance, 
during  those  barren  days  of  theatrical  literature,  in  a 
play  that  possessed  some  claim  to  literary  feeling  and 
excellence.1 

The  critic  of  The  Times  best  describes  this  rendering  of 
"  lolanthe." 

Mrs.  Stirling  is  just  the  actress  to  seize  on  a  definite  idea,  and  to 
work  it  out  with  thoughtfulness  and  accuracy.  The  uncertainty  of 
her  movements  as  the  blind  girl,  the  attitudes  which  were  too  pleasing 
to  be  called  awkward,  but  which  yet  conveyed  the  notion  of  an  in- 

1  The  play  was  first  translated  into  English  by  Jane  Francis  Chapman 
in  1845,  and  first  played  in  these  islands  on  November  28,  1848,  at  the 
Theatre  Royal,  Dublin — a  translation  by  the  Hon.  Edward  Phipps.  This 
was  a  triumph  for  the  Keans,  the  comments  of  the  Irish  press  being  among 
the  most  laudatory  I  ever  saw.  The  Irish  are  wholehearted  in  blessing, 
as  in  cursing.  The  Keans  revived  it  at  the  St.  James's,  April  10,  1850, 
with  Charles  Kean  as  "  Count  Tristan  "  and  Mrs.  C.  Kean  as  "  lolanthe." 
Sir  T.  Martin,  in  his  biography  of  Helen  Faucit  (Lady  Martin),  does  not 
mention  Mrs.  Stirling  in  connection  with  "  lolanthe,"  nor  with  "  Adrienne." 


"ADRIENNE  LECOUVREUR  "  115 

ability  in  the  body  to  obey  the  dictates  of  the  mind,  were  highly 
truthful,  and  the  air  of  trusting  simplicity  with  which  she  replied 
even  to  a  strange  voice,  was  the  more  pathetic  from  the  complete 
absence  of  exaggeration.  The  attitude  with  which,  on  her  restoration 
to  sight,  she  greeted  the  sky  above  her,  approached  the  statuesque, 
and  showed  a  profound  conception  of  the  beauty  of  the  situation. 

My  mother  tells  me  that   she    remembers   "lolanthe" 
as  among  the  most  beautiful  of  her  mother's  performances. 


CHAPTER    X 

STRAND,   OLYMPIC,  AND  HAYMARKET 

1849-51 

Mrs.  Glover's  last  appearances — Her  "  Mrs.  Heidelberg "  in  "  The 
Clandestine  Marriage  " — Her  farewell  to  the  stage — Popularity  of 
the  Strand — Mrs.  Stirling's  "  Minerva  "  in  Talfourd's  "  Diogenes  " 
— As  "  Constance  "  in  "  The  Love  Chase  " — Her  "  Constance  "  and 
Mrs.  Nisbett's  compared — "  Olivia  "  in  "  The  Vicar  of  Wakefield  " 
— "  Polly  Crisp,"  a  popular  success — Plays  from  Germany  :  "  Poor 
Cousin  Walter "  and  "  Power  and  Principle " — Death  of  Mrs. 
Glover — Mrs.  Glover's  and  Mrs.  Stirling's  renderings  of  "  Mrs. 
Malaprop  "  compared — Mrs.  Stirling  succeeds  Mrs.  Glover  as  leading 
English  exponent  of  old  comedy — "  The  Daughter  of  the  Stars " 
and  "  My  Wife's  Daughter  " — Revival  of  "  Speed  the  Plough  " — 
Uses  of  crude  melodrama — Critical  article  on  Mrs.  Stirling  in 
Tains' s  Magazine — "  All  is  not  Gold  that  Glitters  " — Mrs.  Stirling 
as  "  Martha  Gibbs  " — Retirement  of  Macready — "  King  Charles  " 
and  "  Sir  Roger  de  Coverley." 

DURING  this  memorable  season  at  the  Strand,  where  Mrs. 
Stirling's  star  was  in  the  ascendant,  one  of  her  old  stage 
companions  in  the  same  company  was  making  her  fare- 
well appearances,  in  plays  and  parts  that  had  long  been 
associated  with  her  name.  We  refer,  of  course,  to  Mrs. 
Glover,  who,  on  November  12,  1849,  appeared  as  "  Mrs. 
Heidelberg "  in  Garrick's  and  Colman  the  elder's  famous 
comedy,  "  The  Clandestine  Marriage,"  to  the  "Lord  Ogleby  " 
of  William  Farren  senior,  and  the  "  Fanny  "  of  Mrs.  Stirling. 
The  veteran  actress  had  now  abandoned  new  parts ; 
but  in  old  favourites,  such  as  this,  she  was  almost  as  good 
as  ever,  and  notably  as  "  Mrs.  Heidelberg." 

It  is  in  such  parts  [wrote  the  critic  of  the  Sunday  Times] l  that 
this  admirable  actress  still  plays  with  all  the  fire  and  spirit  of  her 
youth,  and  we  perceive  the  vast  distance  that  lies  between  her  and 
the  cleverest  of  her  modern  successors.2 

1  November  18,  1849. 

8  "  The  Clandestine  Marriage  "  was  one  of  the  best  comedies  of  its 

116 


STRAND,   OLYMPIC,  AND  HAYMARKET    117 

This,  be  it  observed,  with  "  the  cleverest  of  her  modern 
successors  "  in  the  same  cast ! 

This  "  little  nutshell  of  a  theatre,"  called  the  Strand, 
though,  of  course,  limited  in  its  holding  and  financial 
capacities,  was  then  very  popular  and  prosperous,  as  might 
be  expected,  in  view  of  the  company's  strength,  and  the 
variety  of  dramatic  fare  supplied.  Among  the  attrac- 
tions at  the  close  of  the  year  was  a  clever  burlesque  by 
Sergeant  Talfourd,1  entitled  "  Diogenes,"  in  which  Mrs. 
Stirling  played  "  Minerva,"  followed,  on  January  21,  1850, 
by  that  really  excellent  and  representative  farce  of  Sheridan 
Knowles,  "  The  Love  Chase,"  with  Mrs.  Glover  in  her 
old  part  of  "  Widow  Green,"  and  W.  Farren  senior,  for 
the  first  time,  as  "  Sir  William  Fondlove,"  played  at  the 
original  production  by  Strickland. 

Mrs.  Stirling  took  Mrs.  Nisbett's  role  of  "  Neighbour 
Constance,"  in  which  she  had  already  appeared  with 
Macready  at  the  Haymarket,  in  1840.  "  Constance  "  was 
a  character  that  suited  her  well,  and  she  made  quite  a  hit 
in  it,  the  manner  in  which  she  rallied  "  Neighbour  Wildrake," 
and  her  forced  gaiety,  when  she  fancies  that  he  is  about 
to  marry  elsewhere,  being,  it  seems,  most  naturally  and 
effectively  done.  Comparing  her  acting  in  "  The  Love 
Chase "  with  that  of  Mrs.  Nisbett,  contemporary  critics 
opined  that,  while  the  latter  was  more  excellent  in  the 
expression  of  irresistible  mirth — a  faculty  in  which  she 
appears  to  have  had  never  an  equal  upon  the  legitimate 
stage,  excepting  only  Mrs.  Jordan — Mrs.  Stirling  put  more 
light  and  shade  into  the  picture.  Touches  of  natural 
tenderness,  visible  through  the  assumed  indifference  of 
the  wayward  girl,  gave  an  inexpressible  charm  to  the 
interpretation. 

century.  Coleman,  in  his  Charles  Reade  makes  the  latter  say,  con- 
cerning the  spoken  word  in  this  play,  "No  private  reader  could  ever  see 
these  words  as  Glover  used  to  fire  them  in  '  The  Clandestine  Marriage.' 
.  .  .  *  Will  Sir  John  take  Fanny  without  a  fortune  ?  No  !  After  you 
have  settled  the  largest  part  of  your  property  on  your  youngest  daughter, 
can  there  be  an  equal  portion  left  to  the  elder  ?  No  !  Doesn't  this  over- 
turn the  whole  system  of  the  family  ?  Yes  ! '  ' 

1  Sir  Thomas  Noon  Talfourd  (1795-1854)  had  become  known  to  the 
theatrical  world  by  the  production  of  his  tragedy,  "  Ion,"  at  Covent  Garden, 
in  1836.  None  of  his  other  writings  for  the  stage  met  with  great  success. 


118     THE   STAGE  LIFE   OF   MRS.   STIRLING 

"The  Love  Chase"  was  followed  by  Tom  Taylor's 
version  of  the  "  Vicar  of  Wakefield,"  in  which  Mrs. 
Stirling  played  "  Olivia,"  l  a  performance  still  remembered 
with  pleasure  by  living  persons,  including  Sir  Squire 
Bancroft,  who  has  told  the  writer  how  much  he  enjoyed 
it,  boy  though  he  was  at  the  time.  Later  on  Mrs.  Stirling 
made  "  Olivia "  one  of  her  most  popular  parts,  after 
41  Peg  Woffington,"  though  her  performance  was  never 
technically  equal  to  that  of  Mrs.  Glover  as  "  Mrs.  Prim- 
rose." There  followed  an  opportunity  to  burlesque  Mrs. 
Glover  herself,  in  a  farce  specially  written  for  Mrs.  Stirling, 
by  Stirling  Coyne,  entitled  "  A  New  and  Peculiar  Scene 
in  the  Life  of  an  Unprotected  Female."  This  unprotected 
female,  "  Polly  Crisp,"  had  the  play  all  to  herself,  and, 
with  the  aid  of  a  little  ventriloquism,  could  have  done  it 
alone.  "  Polly,"  in  doubt  concerning  her  future  way  of  life, 
decides  upon  the  stage,  and  proceeds  accordingly  to  pre- 
pare herself.  Mrs.  Stirling,  always  ready  for  some  fun, 
entered  thoroughly  into  the  spirit  of  the  thing.  As  "  Mrs. 
Heidelberg,"  "  Juliet,"  and  other  well-known  characters, 
she  gave  the  audience  extremely  clever  imitations  of  Mrs. 
Glover  and  Mrs.  Kean,  with  a  clothes-horse  for  balcony, 
and,  for  "  Romeo,"  a  stick  robed  in  a  barrister's  gown, 
and  wigged.  It  all  sounds  very  undignified  to  modern 
ears,  but  was  typical  of  the  time. 

One  critic's  appreciation  moved  him  twice  to  latinity. 

As  to  the  performance  of  Mrs.  Stirling  (omnes  junctce  in  una)  ?twas 
inimitable.  The  unflagging  energy  and  the  vivida  vis  animi  which  she 
threw  into  the  part  were  truly  astonishing  ;  and  just  as  "  Diogenes," 
in  the  after  piece,  seeks  with  his  lantern  for  an  honest  man,  we  shall 
only  say,  were  Mr.  Coyne  to  search  the  metropolis  for  a  "  Polly 
Crisp,"  he  could  find  but  one,  and  that  one  decidedly  Mrs.  Stirling.2 

The  part  was  one  of  her  popular  triumphs. 

April  brought  "  Poor  Cousin  Walter,"  in  which  Mrs. 
Stirling,  Cooke,  W.  Farren  junior,  and  Leigh  Murray  took 
part,  in  costumes  of  1660.  The  story  was  quite  im- 

1  Recently  revived,  in  Wills's  version,  by  Miss  Viola  Tree,  at  the 
Aldwych,  with  Miss  Gladys  Cooper  as  "  Olivia."  The  most  fascinating  of 
all  the  "  Olivia's,"  no  doubt,  was  Miss  Ellen  Terry,  who,  with  (Sir)  John 
Hare,  was  the  first  to  play  it  in  Wills's  version. 

•  Sunday  Times,  February  10,  1850. 


STRAND,   OLYMPIC,  AND   HAYMARKET    119 

probable,  not  to  say  impossible,  yet  there  was  a  certain 
elegance  and  neatness  about  Palgrave  Simpson's  work,  that 
— as  in  the  case  of  "  Time  Tries  All  " — eked  out  by  good 
acting,  saved  the  play,  and  effectually  concealed  its  German 
origin ;  for  the  author  acknowledged  indebtedness  to 
"  Der  Landwizth,"  "  The  Farmer,"  by  Princess  Amelia 
of  Saxony. 

The  management  of  the  New  Strand  produced,  in 
June  1850,  without  much  success,  another  work  of  Teutonic 
origin,  "  Power  and  Principle,"  from  Schiller's  early  play, 
"  Kabale  und  Liebe,"  of  his  "  storm  and  pressure  period,"  l 
adapted  by  Morris  Barnett. 

Mrs.  Glover,  meanwhile,  had  retired  from  the  stage. 
On  June  8  she  gave  her  last  performance  at  the  Strand, 
as  "  Mrs.  Malaprop,"  and  on  July  12  she  chose  the  same 
part  for  her  farewell  performance  at  Drury  Lane.  Ill  and 
almost  voiceless,  the  veteran  actress  came  through  the 
evening  as  best  she  might,  and  was  seen  no  more  upon 
the  boards.  Within  a  few  weeks  she  had  passed  from  the 
world-stage  also,  dying  on  July  16,  1850,  amid  the  general 
regrets  of  all  who  knew  her,  whether  only  as  a  great 
actress,  or  also  as  a  good  woman.  Having  already  referred 
more  than  once  to  this  great  descendant  of  Betterton, 
we  need  not  here  reiterate ;  but,  since  Mrs.  Stirling 
was  to  be  her  legitimate  successor  in  high  comedy 
generally,  and  in  old  English  comedy  in  particular,  it  may 
be  interesting  to  compare  the  methods  of  the  two  actresses 
in  the  rdle  of  "  Mrs.  Malaprop,"  the  last  that  Mrs.  Glover 
played,  and  one  in  which  neither  she  nor  Mrs.  Stirling,  in 
their  respective  manners,  have  ever  been  equalled.  The 
following  study  is  by  Westland  Marston,  one  of  the  most 
penetrating,  and  also  among  the  sanest,  of  nineteenth- 
century  dramatic  critics  :  2 

Those  who  having  seen  Mrs.  Glover  in  "  Mrs.  Malaprop,"  have 
also  seen  Mrs.  Stirling's  admirably  telling  delineation,  full  of  intrigue, 
life,  and  movement,  of  the  same  part,  have  had  an  opportunity  of 
seeing  the  utmost  that  two  differing  methods  can  produce,  and  of 
comparing  their  effects.  In  the  hands  of  each,  the  general  outlines 

1  Sturm  und  Drangperiode. 

2  Our  Recent  Actors,  1888,  i,  262. 


120     THE  STAGE  LIFE  OF  MRS.   STIRLING 

of  a  character  so  broadly  defined  as  "  Mrs.  Malaprop,"  were,  of  course, 
identical.  The  difference — and  it  was  considerable — lay  in  shades 
of  expression.  In  uttering  the  grandiloquent  phraseology  of  the 
part,  Mrs.  Glover's  self-satisfaction  was  more  restrained,  but  not  less 
profound,  than  Mrs.  Stirling's.  The  former  seemed  to  hug  the  secret 
of  her  superiority,  the  latter  to  revel  in  its  presumed  effect  upon  her 
listeners.  The  compliments  of  "  Captain  Absolute "  were  received 
by  Mrs.  Glover  with  evident  pleasure,  indeed,  but  with  a  conscious- 
ness that  they  were  absolutely  her  due  ;  by  Mrs.  Stirling  with  a  flutter 
of  delighted  vanity.  In  hearing  herself  described  as  an  old  weather- 
beaten  she-dragon  resentment  predominates  with  Mrs.  Stirling,  whilst 
with  Mrs.  Glover  an  appealing  astonishment  against  the  profanity 
of  the  impeachment  was  the  leading  sentiment.  There  are  now  few 
who  have  had  a  chance  of  contrasting  the  claims  of  these  two  admir- 
able actresses  in  the  part  in  question  ;  but  even  those  who  have  the 
liveliest  recollection  of  Mrs.  Glover  will  recognize  in  Mrs.  Stirling's 
"Mrs.  Malaprop"  the  finest  example  of  old  comedy  acting  left  to 
the  contemporary  stage. 

This  sagacious  analysis  was  written  a  quarter  of  a 
century  or  so  later  than  1850,  the  year  we  are  now  con- 
sidering. Mrs.  Stirling  had  not  then  played  "  Mrs.  Mala- 
prop," nor — had  she  done  so — could  she  have  matched 
the  technical  acquirements  of  the  more  mature  actress. 
The  passing  of  Mrs.  Glover  was  to  bring  her  larger  oppor- 
tunities in  old  English  comedy,  and,  with  opportunity, 
experience  that  had  not  hitherto  come  her  way. 

Heavy,  indeed,  was  the  work  imposed  upon  Farren's 
leading  lady  at  this  time.  On  August  5  she  played 
"  Miriam,"  "  The  Daughter  of  the  Stars,"  a  strong  acting 
part,  in  the  character  of  an  impertinent  yet  withal  virtuous, 
philosophical,  poetical,  and  epigrammatic  gipsy.  Shirley 
Brooks,  the  author,  here  curiously  dodging  dramatic  con- 
vention, by  denying  to  "  Miriam,"  at  last,  the  man  of  her 
love,  and  so  bringing  down  upon  the  head  of  an  innocent 
victim  all  the  misery  entailed  by  the  sins  of  others. 

During  the  same  month,  W.  Farren,  the  lessee  of  the 
Strand,  took  the  Olympic,  and  on  September  2  trans- 
ferred thither  his  whole  company,  with  "  The  Daughter 
of  the  Stars."  "  Miriam,"  however,  broke  down  on 
September  4,  and  "  Secret  Service "  was  substituted, 
until  the  12th,  when  Farren  put  on  "  Giralada,  or  the 
Invisible  Husband,"  a  somewhat  colourless,  and  rather 


MRS.    STIRLING,   ABOUT   1850. 


To  face  p.  120. 


STRAND,   OLYMPIC,  AND   HAYMARKET    121 

suggestive,  piece,  adapted  by  Welstead  from  Scribe, 
who,  though  too  fond  of  trafficking  in  morbid  sensibilities 
— as  in  "Adrienne  Lecouvreur" — was  the  ablest  and  most 
prolific  dramatist  of  his  day,  highly  skilled  in  constructing 
a  plot  of  intrigue,  and  in  weaving  a  complex  story,  with- 
out too  much  entangling  his  threads.  Another  version  of 
the  same  play,  by  Ben  Webster,  was  done  at  the  Hay- 
market  at  the  same  time. 

October  brought  "  My  Wife's  Daughter,"  cleverly 
adapted  from  "  La  Femme  de  Quarante  Ans,"  by  Stirling 
Coyne,  who,  in  this  piece,  slight  as  it  was,  touched  a  level 
rather  higher  than  any  reached  in  his  earlier  work,  which 
had  consisted  mainly  of  broad  farce.  The  play,  though 
no  wiser  than  many  of  its  kind,  was,  as  the  French  title 
suggests,  deftly  contrived  to  provide  a  competent  actress 
with  a  carefully  developed  character-sketch  of  a  married 
lady  of  forty — a  woman  of  warm  affections  and  of  fine 
sensibility,  yet  so  acutely  alive  to  the  difference  of  years 
between  herself  and  her  husband,  that  "  un  ombre,  un 
souffle,  un  rien,  tout  lui  donnait  la  fievre." 

The  Sunday  Times l  was  appreciative. 

Mrs.  Stirling's  impersonation  of  the  loving  and  sensitive  wife  is 
one  of  the  most  highly  finished  and  perfectly  artistic  delineations 
of  character  that  we  have  ever  seen.  Mr.  Compton,  too,  has  struck 
out  for  himself  a  new  and  distinct  line  of  comic  assumption  in  the 
dignified  "  Gillyflower,"  the  gentleman's  gentleman — a  vulgar  arro- 
gance and  imperturbable  carelessness  admirably  sustained. 

This  run  of  success  was  bringing  the  Olympic,  as  it  had 
previously  brought  the  Strand,  prominently  into  public 
notice  ;  and  the  house,  despite  its  inferior  situation,  was 
not  only  fully,  but  also  fashionably  attended.  The  Farrens 
took  the  opportunity  to  engage  Miss  Helen  Faucit,  who, 
after  an  absence  of  three  years,  reappeared  upon  the  stage, 
in  a  tragedy  by  Westland  Marston,  "Philip  of  France2  and 
Marie  de  Meraine,"  with  Gustavus  Brooke  as  the  King. 
Later  Miss  Faucit  played  "  Pauline "  in  "  The  Lady  of 
Lyons,"  and  appeared  also  in  "The  Hunchback,"  leaving, 
just  before  Christmas,  for  a  provincial  tour. 

1  October  17,  1850.  2  Philippe  Auguste. 


122     THE   STAGE  LIFE   OF  MRS.   STIRLING 

Mrs.  Stirling,  meanwhile,  was  appearing  in  a  number  of 
revivals  of  her  old  parts,  including  "  Laura  "  in  "  Time 
Tries  All,"  and  "  Portia  "  to  G.  W.  Brooke's  "  Shylock  "  ; 
but  the  strain  of  incessant  and  arduous  work  was  beginning 
already  to  make  itself  so  felt  that,  for  a  time,  she  was 
seriously  indisposed.  Billed  for  "  Gwynneth  Vaughan," 
her  breakdown  compelled  the  Farrens  to  substitute  that 
once  popular  old  melodrama,  tc  Speed  the  Plough,"  by 
Thomas  Morton  the  elder,  the  heroine  of  which,  "  Susan 
Ashfield,"  she  had  played  in  the  old  days.1  In  "Mrs. 
Grundy,"  Mrs.  Ashfield's  mythical  friend,  we  have,  I  sup- 
pose, the  original  of  the  social  critic,  whose  name — except 
among  students  of  the  stage — has  outlived  her  creator  ; 
for  this  must  have  been  one  of  the  last  revivals  of  a  class 
of  work  that— as  Downton  says  of  his  spendthrift  son,  in 
another  famous  play  of  bygone  days,  "  The  Road  to  Ruin  " 
— is  just  "  a  jumble  of  fatuity." 

"  Speed  the  Plough  "  teems  with  stage  devices  dear  to 
the  melodramatist.  There  are  blood-stains,  an  old  portrait, 
a  long-lost  brother,  a  castle  in  flames,  unexpected  reap- 
pearances, clasped  hands,  and  wedding  bells,  set  in  a 
dialogue  of  which  two  samples  will  give  a  sufficient  idea : 

SIR  PHILIP.    Have  you  removed  every  dreadful  vestige  from  the 
fatal  chamber  ?    O  !  speak  ! 

And  this: 

HENRY.    The  opiate  that  brings  me  sleep  will  be  the  recollection 
of  the  day  passed  in  innocence  ! 
SIR  PHILIP.    Noble  boy  ! 

Such  gems  of  dramatic  conversation  either  recall  Sir 
Peter's  phrase  concerning  sentiments,  or  raise  a  laugh, 
according  to  one's  humour ;  yet,  while  we  smile  at  them, 
it  is  well  to  remember  that  such  plays  as  "  Speed  the 
Plough,"  despite  their  pompous  verbosity,  staginess,  crude 
characterization,  and  utter  remoteness  from  real  life,  did, 
nevertheless,  by  their  inherent  dramatic  qualities,  help  to 
imbue  Mrs.  Stirling,  and  other  players  of  her  day,  with  a 
bigness  and  breadth  of  style  essential  to  complete  tech- 
1  I  cannot  trace  the  date. 


STRAND,   OLYMPIC,  AND   HAYMARKET    123 

nical  equipment.  Many  modern  actors  and  actresses  fail 
in  almost  all  but  drawing-room  drama,  for  want  of  those 
very  qualities,  of  broad  technique,  that  stage  methods  and 
plays  of  seventy  years  ago  demanded,  and  consequently 
supplied. 

During  this  year,  1850,  when  her  daughter  Fanny  is 
eight  years  old.  and  domestic  pleasures  and  duties  are 
beginning  already  to  conflict  with  stage  ambitions,  there 
appeared  in  Tallis's  Magazine  a  critical  article  that  well 
describes,  though  in  somewhat  too  Victorian  language, 
Mrs.  Stirling's  development  and  achievement  up  to  this 
time.  The  writer  evidently  knew  the  many  difficulties  and 
dangers  that  had  beset  the  actress  from  the  outset  of  her 
career,  and  appreciated  sympathetically  the  courage  and 
perseverance  with  which  they  had  been  met. 

The  course  of  theatrical  experience  to  whicli  Mrs.  Stirling  has 
been  destined,  operating  upon  a  flexible  and  plastic  capacity,  has 
given  her  a  versatility  of  talent  which  makes  her  equally  ready  in 
all  classes  of  the  drama.  From  the  domestic  to  the  heroic,  from  the 
comic  to  the  tragic,  from  farce  to  the  classical  drama,  Mrs.  Stirling 
is  found  in  every  grade  of  character  an  efficient  representative.  To 
the  highest  poetry  she  is  now  capable  of  giving  appropriate  expression. 
The  sweet  versification  of  "  King  Rene's  Daughter  "  "  fell  mended 
from  her  tongue."  Her  elocution,  though  in  tragedy  somewhat  want- 
ing in  variety,  is  always  accurate.  Her  cadences  arc  exceedingly 
musical,  the  tones  of  her  voice  remarkably  pathetic,  and  her  gestures 
intensely  expressive.  She  has  a  countenance  capable  of  displaying 
remarkable  emotion,  and  also  of  relapsing  into  placidity  and  cheer- 
fulness. Her  art  is  peculiar  and  individual,  unlike  that  of  any  other 
actress.  It  combines  simplicity  with  art,  and  not  seldom  conceals 
the  latter  by  the  prudent  interposition  of  the  former. 

In  this  narrative  we  have  traced  the  course  of  a  well-educated 
lady,  who  by  the  accidental  practice  of  an  art,  has  at  length  ascer- 
tained its  principles  and  their  useful  application  ;  not  the  favoured 
pupil  of  a  school,  who  by  early  and  timely  discipline  has  been  taught 
the  rules  and  enabled  to  foresee  every  step  of  her  progress.  All  that 
Mrs.  Stirling  has  attained  she  has  conquered  by  the  labour  of  a  long 
professional  life.  Not  the  slightest  toil  has  been  spared  her  ;  not 
the  slightest  favour  been  enjoyed.  Unassisted,  unguided,  without 
patronage  or  direction,  the  solitary  woman  has  been  deserted,  to  do 
battle  with  the  trials,  temptations,  perils,  and  difficulties  of  her  posi- 
tion, by  means  of  her  native  energies,  and  according  to  their  unin- 
structed  capacity  of  development.  Nature  was  trusted  to  do  all 
for  her — not  fortune.  Her  bark  has  been  left  to  the  mercy  of  the 


124     THE   STAGE  LIFE   OF   MRS.   STIRLING 

winds  and  the  waves  ;  but  the  novice  at  the  helm,  by  simply  doing 
her  best,  has,  after  many  delays  and  disappointments,  nevertheless 
succeeded  in  bringing  it  into  port. 

All  this  implies  a  heroism  of  character,  perhaps  little  suspected, 
but  undoubtedly  possessed.  Mrs.  Stirling  is  one  who  has  suffered 
much,  who  has  had  to  endure  both  wrong  and  sorrow,  whose  path 
has  been  beset  with  seductions  and  dangers  ;  one  who  has  been  com- 
pelled to  submit  and  patiently  to  wait ;  one  who  has  been  enabled 
by  Providence  to  persevere,  to  find  work  and  to  do  it ;  and  finally, 
through  good  and  ill  report,  to  achieve  a  triumphal  issue.  Could 
she  have  started  in  life  with  her  present  experience  in  it,  she  would 
probably  have  conducted  it  after  a  different  model,  if  indeed  it  can 
be  said  to  have  a  model  at  all.  From  the  necessity  of  circumstance, 
on  the  contrary,  it  was  from  the  beginning  without  plan  ;  instinct 
throughout,  it  may  be,  has  substituted  reason.  But  "  in  that,"  as 
the  poetic  essayist  on  man  has  opined,  it  is  "  God  directs  "  ;  in  this, 
"  'tis  man."  "  There  is  a  special  providence  in  the  fall  of  a  sparrow  "  ; 
and  the  destitute  girl,  seeking  to  remedy  the  evils  of  her  social  position 
simply  by  her  disposition  to  work,  has,  with  whatever  pain  and  toil, 
found  at  length  a  partial  recompense  in  the  public  acknowledgment 
of  her  merit  as  an  artist ;  not  holding  the  first  place,  only  because 
fortune  has  not  been  so  favourable  to  her  as  to  others. 


44  Speed  the  Plough "  was  not  the  only  once  famous 
but  now  extinct  melodrama  that  Farren  put  on  during 
this  season  at  the  Olympic.  There  followed,  on  January  13, 
1851,  another  that  had  a  great  vogue  in  its  day — 
44  All  is  not  Gold  that  Glitters,"  by  Thomas  Morton 
the  younger,  and  J.  M.  Morton,  who — need  it  be  said 
— were  adapting  from  a  French  original — 44  Le  Journal 
d'une  Fille,"  or  something  of  the  kind.  The  play 
throughout  is  typical  of  its  species,  telling  a  story  as 
artificial  as  it  is  improbable.  The  nature  to  which 
it  should  hold  up  the  mirror — to  a  superficial  glance, 
at  any  rate — is  not  the  human  nature  about  us. 
High-born  lady,  employer,  factory  girl,  are  not  of  the 
metal  that  rings  true  to  ordinary  life.  And  yet  one 
can  hardly  quarrel  with  the  critic  of  the  Leader  l  when  he 
tells  us  that  the  play  is  44  a  piece  very  near  being  charm- 
ing." Indeed,  one  might  go  a  step  farther  and  say  that 
it  is  quite  charming,  upon  this  one  condition — that  the 
spectator,  consciously  or  unconsciously,  accept  without 

1  January  18,  1851. 


STRAND,   OLYMPIC,  AND   HAYMARKET    125 

reservation  the  luminous  though  profound  metaphysical 
truth,  that  human  creatures  are  sound  at  heart,  that  the 
love  of  man  for  woman  is  powerful,  to  the  overcoming  of 
obstacles,  and  that  a  sense  of  humour,  and  a  deed  of  kind- 
ness, will  shine  always,  as  good  deeds  in  a  naughty  world. 
Humanity  is  the  elemental  strength  of  melodrama.  "  II 
connait  done  son  monde,  ce  bon  Morton  " — well  enough, 
at  least,  to  serve  a  melodramatic  purpose. 

Mrs.  Stirling,  no  doubt,  enjoyed  playing  the  part,  though 
she  must  have  smiled  at  the  naivetS  of  such  lines  as  this, 
concerning  her  aristocratic  benefactress  : 

She  stands  upon  the  brink  of  ruin  !  Shall  I  not  snatch  her  from 
destruction  ?  Yes,  yes  I  I  will  save  her,  whose  mother  preserved 
mine  I  (Looks  at  Sir  A. — the  villain — and  drops  her  bouquet — the 
sign.) 

Mrs.  Stirling  could  play  an  intrigue  with  anybody,  but 
she  was  always  ready,  also,  for  an  open-hearted  piece  of 
acting ;  and  there  was  much  of  the  open-hearted  in 
"  Martha."  That  cast  at  the  Olympic,  with  the  Farrens 
and  Leigh  Murray  also  there,  must  have  well  satisfied 
authors  and  public.  The  Times  of  January  15  com- 
mented : 

The  factory  girl,  "  Martha  Gibbs,"  is  chiefly  marked  by  her  quiet 
unobtrusiveness,  for  even  her  great  sacrifices  are  made  without  osten- 
tation, and  it  is  just  this  quiet  unobtrusiveness  that  is  admirably 
assumed  by  Mrs.  Stirling. 

Occasionally,  however,  she  seems  to  have  allowed  remi- 
niscences of  "  Adrienne  "  and  "  Mrs.  Bracegirdle  "  to  intrude 
themselves  ;  for  the  Leader,  while  appreciating  the  charm- 
ingly natural  touches  thrown  into  the  part,  asserts  that 
the  actress  once  or  twice  forgot  herself,  and  mounted  the 
stilts  of  the  tragedy  queen.  Here  was  manifest  again  the 
old  tendency  to  over-act,  due  to  a  too  intense  desire  to 
please. 

"  All  that  Glitters  "  was  followed,  at  the  Olympic,  by 
a  light  comedy  from  the  pen  of  Palgrave  Simpson,  "  That 
Odious  Captain  Cutter,"  which  I  should  have  passed  over, 
had  not  the  author  done  what  dramatists  are  not  always 
ready  to  do — namely,  make  admission  of  how  much  a 


126     THE   STAGE  LIFE   OF  MRS.   STIRLING 

play  may  owe  to  the  manner  of  its  interpretation,  and  to 
the  indispensable  filling  up,  that  a  novelist  may  do  for 
himself,  but  a  playwright  must  leave  to  the  player.  Time 
after  time,  during  these  years,  did  Mrs.  Stirling  and  her 
companions  save  their  authors  ;  yet  how  many  returned 
to  give  thanks  ?  Simpson  did  so,  at  the  close  of  the  printed 
version  of  his  work. 

To  Mrs.  Stirling  and  Mr.  Leigh  Murray  the  author  takes  this 
occasion  of  offering  his  grateful  acknowledgements  of  that  display 
of  talent,  which  so  very  mainly  contributed  to  the  success  of  this 
little  comedy.  To  both  the  highest  praise  is  due  ;  for  the  exquisite 
grace,  finesse,  and  the  true  comedy  tone  with  which  they  so  ably 
filled  up  the  sketches  of  the  characters  they  represented. 

This  beginning  of  1851  was  a  time  of  considerable 
theatrical  prosperity  in  London.  The  Princess's,  Adelphi, 
Lyceum,  and  Olympic  were  all  doing  well,  and  the  Queen 
had  been  commanding  Shakespeare  at  Windsor  Castle. 
Macready,  at  the  Haymarket,  was  giving  his  final  per- 
formances before  taking  a  last  farewell  of  the  London 
stage,  on  February  26,  amid  a  scene  of  enthusiasm 
almost  without  parallel  in  the  history  of  the  stage.  Too 
seldom  do  actors  or  actresses  consent,  as  Macready  and 
the  Bancrofts  did,  to  retire  while  yet  at  the  height  of  their 
powers ;  still  more  seldom  do  they  so  withdraw,  as 
Macready  did,  without  one  pang  of  regret  for  the  beautiful 
art  they  are  abandoning.  Failure  to  respect  his  art  was  a 
part  of  his  life's  tragedy. 

At  the  Olympic,  however,  the  performances  during  the 
spring  and  summer  were  not  of  exceptional  interest.  March 
brought  "  King  Charles,"  a  comediatta,  in  which  Mrs. 
Stirling  played  "  Mimi,"  a  French  girl. 

If  King  Charles  to  Charles  King  will  grant  a  long  day 
Charles  King  for  King  Charles  for  ever  will  pray ; 
If  King  Charles  to  Charles  King  will  grant  liberty's  light, 
Then  Charles  King  for  King  Charles  for  ever  will  fight. 

This  was  followed  by  "  Sir  Roger  de  Coverley," x 
adapted  from  Addison  by  Tom  Taylor,  who,  while 

1  April  21,  1851. 


STRAND,    OLYMPIC,   AND   HAYMARKET      127 

keeping  as  close  as  he  might  to  Addisonian  speech,  had 
largely  to  rely  upon  his  own  ingenuity  for  giving  the  thing 
a  dramatic  bent. 

Farren,  as  "  Sir  Roger  n  [said  the  Sunday  Times] x  seemed  to  have 
stepped  out  of  one  of  the  family  pictures  ;  and  Mrs.  Stirling,  in  whose 
hands  every  character  she  assumes  acquires  importance,  portrayed 
with  charming  grace  and  vivacity  the  coquettish  "  Lady  Bellairs.11 

1  April  27,  1851. 


CHAPTER    XI 

CHARLES   READE  AND    "THE  LADIES' 
BATTLE  " 

1851 

Enter  Charles  Reade — Introduced  by  Rogers,  he  reads  "  Christie  John- 
stone  "  to  Mrs.  Stirling — The  beginning  of  a  friendship — "  La 
Bataille  des  Dames  " — A  dinner  party  at  the  "  Star  and  Garter  " 
— Reade  adapts  "  The  Ladies'  Battle " — Mrs.  Stirling  as  the 
"  Comtesse  d'Autreval " — Reade  as  rehearser  and  critic — French 
and  English  renderings  of  the  " Countess" — Comparisons  with  Rachel 
— Letter  of  "  Aristarchus "  to  Mrs.  Stirling — Reade's  letter  con- 
cerning  it — Revivals  at  the  Haymarket — "  The  Man  of  Law  " — 
Filching  from  the  French — Scandals  due  to  absence  of  International 
dramatic  copyright — Years  of  transition. 

OUR  story,  hitherto,  has  brought  us  into  contact  with  very 
few  individuals  who  were  known  personally  to  any  of  our 
contemporaries  ;  but  now,  as  we  pass  into  the  second  half 
of  the  nineteenth  century,  we  are  to  meet  people  well 
remembered  by  many  still  living ;  and  this  book,  though 
not  primarily  concerned  with  the  private  life  of  its  subject, 
will  lift,  here  and  there,  a  corner  of  the  veil,  and  become 
momentarily,  upon  occasion,  a  biography  as  well  as  a  record. 

The  very  next  production  at  the  Olympic,  in  fact,  is  to 
bring  vividly  into  the  picture  the  strange  personality  of  a 
certain  impressionable,  eccentric,  impetuous,  and  imaginative 
young  genius,  Charles  Reade  by  name.  Graphically  has  he 
recounted,1  through  the  medium  of  his  friend,  the  late  actor 
John  Coleman,  the  events  that  led  up  to,  and  the  results 
that  grew  from,  his  first  meetings  with  Mrs.  Stirling. 

Charles  Reade — then,  in  1850,  a  young  man  of  thirty- 
six  years,2  smitten,  almost  from  boyhood,  with  a  love  of 
the  stage,  that  was  to  develop  into  a  passion — numbered 

1  Charles  Reade,  by  John  Coleman,  p.  81  et  seq. 
8  Born  June  8,  1814. 

128 


CHARLES  READE,  "THE  LADIES'  BATTLE"    129 

already  among  his  friends  certain  actors,  with  one  of  whom, 
Jimmy  Rogers,1  otherwise  "  Melancholy  James  " — melan- 
choly off  the  stage,  though  humorous  upon  it,  after  the 
manner  of  his  kind — he  was  upon  terms  of  close  intimacy. 

Now  Reade,  having  written  a  play,  "  Christie  John- 
stone,"  that  he  was  anxious  to  see  produced,  had  asked 
"  Melancholy  James  "  for  assistance  in  the  matter.  In  the 
month  of  November  1850  2  the  latter  had  written  to  Reade, 
to  the  effect  that  the  "  gorgious  Stirling  "  had  consented 
to  hear  "  Christie "  read  by  its  author.  Reade  at  once 
left  Oxford,  with  the  manuscript  in  his  pocket,  came  to 
London,  and  from  a  seat  in  Rogers'  box,  at  the  Olympic, 
saw  Mrs.  Stirling  play  "  Laura  Leeson  "  in  "  Time  Tries 
All,"  Courtnay's  little  comedy,  of  which  we  have  already 
written.3 

When  the  play  was  over,  "  Melancholy  James  "  took 
his  companion  across  the  stage — a  first  experience  that 
made  his  heart  glow — and  introduced  him  to  Mrs.  Stirling, 
in  her  dressing-room.  Let  him  describe  her  as  she  then  was.4 

You  who  have  only  seen  Fanny  Stirling  in  her  declining  years 
can  form  no  idea  of  what  she  was  like  when  she  first  dawned  on  me 
in  the  full  rich  glow  of  ripe  womanhood.  Above  the  middle  height, 
an  abundance  of  brown  waving  hair,  a  somewhat  pronounced  nose, 
sparkling  eyes,  luscious  rosy  lips,  a  bewitching  smile,  and  a  mouthful 
of  teeth  like  a  young  horse.  .  .  . 

44  Well,  Jimmy,"  said  she,  beaming,  "  so  this  is  your  young  friend 
from  Oxford  ?  " 

44  M'yas,  queen  of  my  soul,  the  very  identical  flute,"  responded 
James.  44  This  blessed  play  of  his  is  O.K.  and  has  a  rippin'  part  for 
you.  He's  come  all  the  way  to  town  to  read  it  to  you.  When  is  it 
to  be  ?" 

44  To-morrow  at  eleven — second  floor — 27  Arundel  Street.  Excuse 
me.  Glad  to  form  your  acquaintance,  sir.  Emily,  the  door." 

Then  she  bowed  us  out,  like  an  empress  ;  and  it  had  all  been  done 
without  my  getting  a  word  in  edgeways. 

1  "  There  was  a  complete  unconsciousness  of  his  own  power  to  make 
one  laugh,  which  was  more  droll  than  I  can  describe.  It  was  irresistible  : 
a  sad  face  with  a  curious  under-current  of  humour — an  odd  quiet  look  of 
surprise  when  an  audience  roared  at  him  ;  the  more  sadly  surprised  he 
appeared,  the  more  they  laughed."  The  Bancrofts,  p.  37. 

1  Almost  certainly  November  13  or  16,  1850.  The  play  was  frequently 
put  on  for  a  few  nights. 

8  See  ante,  p.  100. 

4  Coleman's  Reade,  pp.  81  et  aeq.  Her  beauty  was  evidently  vital  and 
temperamental,  rather  than  regular  or  classic. 

9 


130     THE   STAGE  LIFE   OF  MRS.   STIRLING 

Next  morning  the  lady  gave  him  a  very  cordial  welcome 
at  Arundel  Street.  He  read  his  play,  of  which,  to  his  intense 
disappointment,  she  did  not  approve.  Personally,  however, 
he  made  an  impression,  received  an  invitation  to  stay  to 
lunch — a  good  lunch.  He  accepted  it,  and  so  began  a 
friendship  that  was  to  have  consequences,  as  is  not 
unusual  when  a  beautiful  and  brilliant  actress,  and  a  clever 
impressionable  artist  of  the  pen,  are  brought  by  destiny 
together. 

Some  six  months  later,  Charles  Reade — recently  installed 
Vice-Chancellor  of  Magdalen,  Oxford,  for  1851 — finding 
himself  at  Paris,  on  private  business,  attended — March  17 — 
the  premiere  of  a  new  comedy,  by  Scribe  and  Legouve", 
entitled  "  La  Bataille  des  Dames."  Pleased  with  the  play, 
and  perceiving,  in  the  "  Comtesse  d'Autreval,"  a  fine  part 
for  Mrs.  Stirling,  he  obtained  a  copy  of  Scribe's  work,  and 
without  so  much  as  a  "  By-your-leave  !  "  proceeded,  after 
the  piratical  fashion  of  the  day,  to  translate  and  adapt 
it  for  the  London  stage.  On  his  return  to  town  he  read 
"  The  Ladies'  Battle  "  to  Mrs.  Stirling,  who  this  time  was 
duly  impressed.  The  two  put  their  heads  together ;  a 
dinner  party  was  arranged,  at  the  "  Star  and  Garter," 
Richmond,  to  which  were  invited  Tom  Taylor,  the  Farrens, 
Leigh  Murray,  and  others,  who  were  all  to  be  of  the  cast ; 
and  ultimately,  on  May  7,  "  The  Ladies'  Battle "  was 
produced  at  the  Olympic,  this  being,  according  to  Reade, 
the  first  occasion — and  I  suppose  the  last — upon  which 
any  Vice-Chancellor  of  a  University  College  had  accom- 
plished such  a  feat  during  his  year  of  office. 

The  play  was  only  moderately  successful,  despite  excellent 
acting,  in  which  Leigh  Murray,  though  too  robust  and 
manly,  distinguished  himself  highly  as  "  de  Crignon."  As 
for  Mrs.  Stirling,  "  she,"  says  Reade,  "  was  head  and 
shoulders  above  everybody."  This  may  well  have  been 
the  case,  though,  for  reasons  that  will  be  more  apparent 
before  long,  it  is  necessary  already  to  discount  somewhat 
his  enthusiasm  for  his  new  friend.  Intensely  susceptible 
to  woman's  beauty,  and  extraordinarily  impulsive  by  nature, 
his  heart  sometimes  overruled  his  head,  and  he  was  eager 
at  this  time  to  lavish  upon  Mrs.  Stirling  praises  that  he 


CHARLES  READE,  "THE  LADIES'  BATTLE "    131 

never  again  bestowed  upon  any  actress,  excepting  perhaps 
only  one — Kate  Terry. 

Concerning  Mrs.  Stirling's  performance  in  "  The  Ladies' 
Battle,"  Reade,  nevertheless,  was  able  to  give  sound  reasons 
for  the  faith  that  was  in  him.  Immature  though  it  might 
be,  his  faculty  of  analysing  an  actor's  performance  was 
already  strongly  developed  ;  while  his  vivid  and  intensely 
dramatic  imagination,  and  his  intuitive  sympathy  with 
the  art  of  the  stage,  rendered  him  already  a  competent, 
though  difficult  and  precocious,  stage-manager.  That  he 
was  fully  aware  of  his  abilities  in  this  respect,  the  following 
extract  shows : 

A  play  of  mine  loses  so  enormously  when  not  rehearsed  by  me, 
that  I  fear  I  shall  always  torment  them  for  the  sake  of  my  own  credit. 
What  a  difference  there  was  in  "  The  Ladies'  Battle  "  brought  out 
at  a  second-rate  theatre  under  my  rehearsal,  and  at  a  first-rate  theatre 
under  Leigh  Murray's.  ...  He  (the  author)  cannot  speak  beauti- 
fully, as  actors  ought,  but  he  can  give  the  exact  point  of  every  sen- 
tence in  his  work,  and  the  acting  business  is  to  tune  these  words, 
and  point,  and  tone,  and  dilate,  and  beautify  them.  This  is  done 
by  Mrs.  Stirling  in  the  long  soliloquy  in  *'  The  Ladies'  Battle,"  and 
was  done  all  through  the  play. 

Very  interesting,  too,  is  his  comparison  between  Mrs. 
Stirling's  methods  in  the  part  and  those  adopted  by  French 
actresses. 

The  "  Count  ess  "  is  so  much  better  acted  than  on  the  French  stage 
that  it  merits  a  particular  notice. 

The  French  artists  who  have  attempted  this  character  have  gone 
through  it  with  elegance  and  weakness  ;  of  the  latter  the  text  is 
innocent.  Mrs.  Stirling  is  the  first  who  has  rendered  Scribe  and 
Legouv6  in  full.  These  gentlemen  meant  the  "  Countess  "  to  be  seriously 
affected  by  her  feelings  and  her  passion.  People  with  brains,  who 
love,  are  apt  to  be. 

The  soliloquy  in  Act  I  is  one  of  the  longest  that,  in  a  Comedy,  has 
been  risked  in  a  Female  Comedian's  hands  (in  England)  for  some 
years.  It  is,  however,  perfectly  safe  with  this  lady.  Each  change 
of  passion  in  it  is  marked  by  her  with  truth  and  vigour.  The  irreso- 
lute inspection  of  the  mirror,  the  ejaculation,  and  still  more  the  look 
that  precedes  it,  are  fine  strokes  of  art.  It  is  more  than  a  change 
of  expression  ;  a  new  face  radiant  with  beauty  and  hope,  glides  into 
the  place  of  one  clouded  with  misgivings.  These  things  escape  a 
vulgar  audience,  and  vulgar  critics,  for  an  obvious  reason :  they  are 


182     THE   STAGE  LIFE   OF  MRS.   STIRLING 

great  feats  of  acting ;  but  the  fact  is,  the  world  would  have  to  be 
ransacked  to  find  another  artist  who  should  render  this  beauty  alto- 
gether as  well  as  it  is  done  in  little  Wych  Street. 

This  point  was  taken  in  Paris,  as  far  as  the  voice,  which  is  nearly 
half  the  business  ;  but  at  the  French  theatre  in  London  it  is  entirely 
missed.  .  .  .  Mrs.  Stirling  gives  the  part  the  reality  that  belongs  to 
it,  and  acts  it  with  equal  power  and  grace,  instead  of  walking,  gliding, 
or  dancing  through  it. — C.  R. 

Following  upon  "  The  Ladies'  Battle "  came  a  com- 
parative failure,  made  memorable  principally  by  another 
of  Reade's  intrusions. 

The  success  of  "  Adrienne  Lecouvreur,"  very  naturally 
had  tempted  Farren  to  experiment  again  with  a  French 
tragedy,  that  Mdlle.  Rachel  and  her  company  had  been 
performing  recently  at  St.  James's  Theatre.  This  was 
Victor  Hugo's  "Angelo,"  a  heavy,  lurid,  melodramatic, 
and  unpleasant,  though  strong,  play  of  Italian  life  in  Padua 
during  the  turbulent  sixteenth  century.  Mrs.  Stirling  was 
entrusted  with  another  of  those  stormy  actress  parts,  "  La 
Tisbe,"  in  which  she  could  portray  all  those  conflicting 
passions,  of  love,  jealousy,  hatred,  cunning,  duplicity, 
heroism,  and  self-sacrifice,  with  a  fidelity  and  power  that 
no  other  English  actress  of  her  day  could  match,  and  that 
Rachel  only  could  surpass. 

Again  the  press  teemed  with  comparisons,  of  which 
we  will  print  one  here. 

Mrs.  Stirling's  was  a  highly  finished  delineation  of  the  fascinating 
comedienne,  who,  despite  the  errors  that  her  position  has  drawn  her 
into  ...  is  so  brilliant,  so  ardent,  so  noble,  and  so  unselfish  in  her 
love,  that  we  are  constrained  to  admire  her  and  sympathize  with  her. 
The  love  that  can  forgo  its  own  gratification  to  promote  the  happi- 
ness of  the  beloved  object  was  pourtrayed  with  extraordinary  intensity 
by  Mrs.  Stirling.  We  think  we  have  witnessed  few  personations 
upon  the  stage  in  which  the  lights  and  shadows  of  the  character  were 
more  carefully  preserved  than  in  this.  Mdlle.  Rachel  electrified  us 
by  some  of  the  great  points,  in  some  of  her  scenes,  especially  that 
in  which  "  Tisbe "  draws  a  contrast  between  the  open  immorality 
of  the  comedienne,  and  the  secret  sinning  of  the  reputedly  modest 
lady  of  the  "Podesta"  ;  nothing  could  equal  the  withering  effect  of 
the  French  artist's  eloquence  in  this  powerful  invective,  but  if  Mrs. 
Stirling  could  not  compete  with  Rachel  in  this  scene,  she  left  an  im- 
pression that,  as  a  whole,  the  character  was  more  completely  filled 


CHARLES  READE,  "THE  LADIES'  BATTLE"    188 

up.  In  the  lighter  scenes,  at  the  commencement  of  the  play,  Mrs. 
Stirling  had  decidedly  the  advantage  of  the  French  artiste  ;  her 
acting  in  the  scene  when  she  obtains  the  master-key  from  the  "  Podesta," 
by  pretending  that  she  loved  him,  was  marked  by  the  most  delicate 
finesse  and  charming  spirit  of  coquetry  imaginable.1 

About  the  same  time,  in  mid- August  1851,  Mrs.  Stirling 
received  a  criticism  that  probably  interested  her  much 
more.  It  took  the  form  of  an  anonymous  letter,  and  was 
as  follows  : 

In  May  last,  Madam,  Fate  conducted  me  to  the  pit  of  the  Olympic 
Theatre. 

I  saw  you  play  in  Genteel  Comedy.2 

You  played  with  an  ease  and  brilliance  rarely  combined  in 
these  days. 

I  was  surprised.  I  knew  you  to  have  talent,  grace,  glee,  and  a 
pathos  peculiar  to  yourself — but  I  did  not  know  you  were  the  first 
genteel  Comedian  in  England.  Seeing  you  announced  in  Tragedy, 
I  returned  to  Wych  Street  Monday  last ; 3  shall  I  own,  with  some 
misgivings.  Madam,  I  am  an  Old  Critic,  who  criticized  Actors  in 
days  when  Criticism  implied  some  sensibility,  some  judgment,  quick 
senses,  and  a  dash  of  Integrity.  Of  late  I  have  not  written,  but  I 
have  talked  ;  and  you  teach  me  I  have  talked  too  fast. 

I  have  not  canted  nor  descended  to  wholesale  abuse,  which  is 
always  dishonest ;  I  have  admitted  that  we  have  actresses  who  rant 
with  more  delicacy,  and  recite  with  a  better  fervour  than  their  pre- 
decessors of  the  same  calibre. 

But  I  have  complained  of  the  want  of  that  real  force  of  Imper- 
sonation which  makes  the  Actor,  male  or  female. 

I  have  been  looking  to  the  Future  for  this  :  you  seem  to  tell  me 
it  has  been  all  these  years  under  my  Nose,  and  I  without  the  wit  to 
discern  it. 

Is  it  really  so  ?  are  you  not  like  Goldsmith  "  a  flower  that  bloomed 
late,"  or  has  the  jealousy  of  Theatrical  management  kept  you  from 
your  place  at  the  highest  pinnacle  of  your  Art  ?  I  cannot  understand 
it — let  us  confine  ourselves  to  the  Facts  as  they  are. 

Had  I  seen  you  fifteen  years  ago  play  the  Countess  Something  *  and 
"  La  Tisbe,"  I  should  have  told  you  what  I  tell  you  now — that  you 
are  perhaps  the  first  Impersonator  of  great  and  contrary  characters 
in  Europe  ;  and  this  is  a  long  way  on  the  road  to  being  the  first 
Actress. 

1  Sunday  Times,  August  17,  1851. 
"The  Widow"  in  "Sir  Roger  de  Coverley." 

3  Either  the  first  night,  Monday,  August   11,   or  Monday,  August   18. 
The    play    was    withdrawn   Sat.    August   24.     It   was    an    adaptation    of 
Victor  Hugo's  "  Angelo." 

4  "Comtesse  d'Autreval"  in  "The  Ladies'  Battle." 


134     THE   STAGE  LIFE   OF  MRS.   STIRLING 

In  England  there  is  no  actress  at  present  who  could  play  either 
the  Tragic  or  the  Comic  part  so  well  as  you  do  both.  Such,  Madam, 
is  your  Merit. 

Heaven  knows  what  is  your  position  :  let  it  not  affect  your 
Estimate  of  yourself  too  much  :  there  were  not  half  a  dozen  people 
in  my  early  day  who  could  judge  Acting,  and  I  am  sure  that  there 
are  not  half  that  now ;  but  go  on  as  you  are  going,  and  what  I  tell 
you  now  all  the  world  will  tell  you  by  and  by. 

Will  you  now  let  an  old  fellow  go  through  the  part  of  "  Tisbe  " 
with  you.  It  is  a  fine  performance,  full  of  faults,  as  all  human  per- 
formances are,  but  full  of  beauties,  which  they  generally  are  not. 

1.  You    enter    speaking.     Spirited    and    judicious ! *     It    shows 
sense  and  self-denial  to  enter  as  a  character,  not  Mrs.  So-and-So. 
Impersonation  and  Illusion  cannot  begin  too  soon. 

2.  Your  narrative  is  skilfully  told  and  varied,  and  the  way  you 
indicate  a  Mind  going  back,  along  with  the  tale,  to  early  scenes  and 
sentiments,  shows  Mind  in  your  conception.2 

3.  Two  little  speeches  to  the  "  Podesta"  "Why  don't  you  die?'1 
and  "Would  you  like  'yes*  better?"  are  spoken  by  you  a  shade  too 
roughly. 

4.  The  scene  with  "Rodolfo"3  is  beyond  praise,  almost  as  far 
as  it  is  beyond  Mademoiselle  Rachel.     I  mention  her  because  she  is 
your  predecessor,  and  eclipses  you  in  several  scenes  of  this  play  that 
you  do  in  common. 

In  this  scene  you  rise  from  impersonation  to  personification  ;  you 
are  the  Goddess  of  Love  en  "Tisbe.'8  This  is  the  poetry  of 
acting. 

5.  "  Angelo  "    and   "  Tisbe  "  :     I   cannot  judge   you   here  ;    you 
follow  Rachel ;   and  I  must  say  it  is  six  for  one  and  half  a  dozen  for 
the  other.     The  way  in  which  both  ladies  say  "  I  love  you,"  4  in  the 
chain  business,  is  not  to  be  surpassed  by  a  third — since  you  separate 
often  and  with  the  best  effect  from  your  predecessor,  we  are  the  more 
indebted  to  you  that  you  can  imitate  her  where  so  much  is  to  be  gained 
by  it. 

ACT  2.  You  have  not  the  lightning  declamation  of  Rachel.  What 
you  want  is  a  little  more  indignation,  a  little  less  spite,  and  greater 

1  A  good  entrance  was  one  of  Mrs.  Stirling's  characteristics. 

2  The  "  Podesta,"  in  love  with  "  Tisbe,"  has  seen  her  talking  with  another 
man,  and  is  jealous,  and  curious.     "  Tisbe "  reveals  something  of  her  past, 
and  how  she  is  looking  for  a  young  woman,  who,  years  before,  had  saved 
her  ("Tisbe's")  mother's  life.     The  mother  had  given  that  woman  a  crucifix, 
telling  her  to  keep  it,  as  it  would  bring  her  happiness.     By  means  of  that 
crucifix  "Tisbe"  hopes  to,  and  does,  identify  her  benefactress,  who  turns  out 
to  be  the  "  Podesta's  "  wife. 

8  She  is  in  love  with  "Rodolfo,"  but  does  not  yet  know  that  he  is  not  in 
love  with  her. 

*  "  Tisbe  "  pretends  to  be  in  love  with  "  Angelo  "  in  order  to  coax  from 
him  his  chain,  on  which  is  the  master  key  to  his  private  apartments.  A 
spy  has  promised  her  sight  of  her  lover  if  she  can  first  get  the  key. 


CHARLES  READE,  "THE  LADIES'  BATTLE"    135 

rapidity.  Act  it  a  little  more,  and  quicker,  and  let  the  points  take 
care  of  themselves — you  are  nearly  right,  but  not  quite,  a  trifle  will 
do  it.  Your  position,  however,  on  the  stage  as  you  hurl  back  the 
three  invectives  of  your  preceding  speech  is  finely  imagined  for  the 
rhetorical  purpose,  and  gives  you  one  effect  she  missed.1 

Your  dumb  play  with  the  crucifix  is  also  superior  ;  Rachel  does 
not  so  visibly  soften.  The  authors,  French  and  English,  are  in  your 
debt  here,  for  you  take  better  care  of  their  plot  at  a  critical  juncture 
than  they  have  taken  themselves. 

Your  play  of  feature  and  manner,  whilst  making  up  your  story 
and  answering  the  "  Podesta's  "  questions,  is  admirable  ;  your  com- 
petitor's is  good,  but  not  quite  so  good.  Her  self-possession  comes  too 
soon  for  the  suspense  of  the  audience,  she  inclines  to  put  them  at 
their  ease,  you  to  keep  them  on  tenter-hooks.2  I  think  you  are  right. 
I  will  trouble  you  with  a  few  more  remarks  to-morrow,  meantime 
may  Heaven  give  you  Health,  Spirits,  Perseverance.  I  suppose  you 
must  be  forty,3  but  to  me  you  come  as  a  young  Actress  just  entering 
upon  a  bright  and  high  career.  May  I  be  so  fortunate  as  to  encourage 
you  a  little.  I  know  how  much  artists  prize  and  need  encourage- 
ment, and  therefore  snatch  a  moment  for  you  from  my  musty 
duties. 

Were  I  to  sign  my  Name,  I  might  seem  to  wish  to  court  your  atten- 
tion, and  to  turn  out  an  old  fool.  So  adieu,  and  whenever  you  play 
a  new  part,  remember  that  there  will  be  a  surly  old  dog  in  the  pit  who 
will  snarl  if  he  sees  you  disposed  to  retrograde — and  this  old  dog  you 
may  call 

ARISTARCHUS. 

The  "  surly  old  dog  "  might  call  and  sign  himself  "  Aris- 
tarchus,"  or  by  any  other  name  he  pleased,  but  it  did  not 
need  a  woman  of  Mrs.  Stirling's  penetration  to  identify 
him,  at  once,  as  Charles  Reade.  Apart  from  other  evidences, 
the  eccentricity  of  the  conceit,  the  cocksureness  of  the  style, 
at  once  revealed  the  author,  who  was  compelled  to  own 
up.  Years  later  he  wrote  to  his  friend,  Mrs.  Baylis,  this 
letter  recalling  and  explaining  the  incident: 

1  "  Tisbe,"  now  the  "  Podesta,"  "  Angelo's"  mistress,  has  obtained  entry 
by  means  of  the  key  into  the  chamber  of  th^  "Podesta's"  wife,  "Catarina," 
which   "  Rodolfo,"    who    loves   and  is  loved   by   "  Catarina  " — and  whom 
44  Tisbe  "  also  loves,  though  in  vain — has  just  quitted.     Thsre  is  a  violent 
scene    between    the   women.     "  Tisbe  "  is  already  calling  "  Angelo,"   when 
"  Catarina,"    expecting  instant   death,   rushes  to   pray   before  the  crucifix. 
" Tisbe"   then   recognizes   the   crucifix   of  which   she  is  in  quest.     Hence- 
forth she  is  "  Catarina's  "  friend,  and  for  her  makes  the  great  sacrifice. 

2  The  "Podesta"   has  entered,  and  "Tisbe,"  to  save  her  new  friend, 
invents  a  story  that,  by  deceiving,  pacifies  him. 

8  Mrs.  Stirling  was  in  her  thirty-ninth  year. 


136     THE   STAGE  LIFE  OF  MRS.   STIRLING 

Charles  Reade  to  Mrs.  Baylis. 

MAGDALEN  COLLEGE,  OXFORD, 

(no  date). 
DEAR  MRS.  BAYLIS, 

Rummaging  among  my  papers  I  have  found  this  which  I 
send  you  because  I  think  you  will  like  me  none  the  less  for  having 
written  it — it  was  an  anonymous  letter  to  Mrs.  Stirling — this  is  the 
copy  in  my  own  handwriting.  I  had  observed  that  she  valued  praise 
from  strangers  more  than  from  me — and  I  was  going  to  write  her 
a  series  of  anonymous  letters  to  cheer  her  in  her  profession. 

I  was  fool  enough  to  think  I  could  disguise  myself — need  I  add 
that  her  keen  eye  penetrated  the  very  first  attempt  and  nipped  my 
anonymous  flower  at  the  root.  However,  it  may  amuse  you,  and 
I  make  you  a  present  of  it.  Say  !  did  I  not  love  this  woman  ?  I 
am  quite  contented,  dear  Mrs.  Baylis,  and  hope  to  be  an  artist  of 
the  pen  before  I  die 

Yours  sincerely, 

READE. 


In  "  The  Cloister  and  the  Hearth  "  that  aspiration  was 
completely  realized. 

Upon  the  failure  of  the  Hugo  drama,  "  Hearts  are 
Trumps  "  and  "  All  that  Glitters  "  were  revived  for  a  time, 
until,  in  October,  Mrs.  Stirling  left  the  Olympic,  after  a 
stay  of  rather  more  than  one  year,  during  which  she  had 
greatly  increased  her  professional  reputation.  During  the 
autumn  she  negotiated  with  the  management  of  the  Adelphi, 
while  touring  for  a  few  weeks  in  the  North  of  England  and 
Scotland.  Her  Adelphi  plan,  however,  did  not  mature, 
and  she  was  engaged,  instead,  by  Ben  Webster  at  the  Hay- 
market,  opening  on  Monday,  November  17,  in  a  revival 
of  "  The  Ladies'  Battle." 

Its  successor,  "  The  Man  of  Law,"  produced  on  Decem- 
ber 9,  was,  alas!  equally  French,  having  been  adapted 
for  the  Parisian  stage  by  the  actor,  Regnier,  from  a  novel 
written  by  George  Sand's  friend,  the  Academician,  Jules 
Sandeau,  from  whom  she  had  taken  her  nom-de-plume. 
Very  successful  at  Paris,  under  the  title  "Mdlle.  de  la 
Seigli&re,"  it  had  been  brought  across  the  Channel  by  Ben 
Webster,  after  one  of  his  many  foraging  expeditions  to 
the  French  capital,  in  search  of  dramatic  stuff  for  the  Adelphi 
or  the  Haymarket. 


CHARLES  READE,  "THE  LADIES'  BATTLE"    187 

Writers  for  the  stage  were  then  internationally  un- 
protected, and  managers  exploited  them  without  scruple. 
It  was  a  lamentable  state  of  affairs.  Ever  since  the  success 
of  "  Don  C6sar  de  Bazan,"  in  1844,  English  authors  had 
been  filching,  right  and  left,  from  the  French  dramatists. 
With  equal  audacity,  and  want  of  consideration,  the 
Americans  were  pirating  English  plays — when  there  were 
any  to  pirate — as  Charles  Reade,  and  others,  were  soon, 
to  their  great  chagrin,  to  discover.  The  press  of  the  time 
was  despondent  concerning  the  stage  in  general.  It  bewailed 
sorrowfully  the  lack  of  original  pieces,  and  the  utter  dearth 
of  fresh  stage  talent — especially  of  the  more  robust  sort — 
as  players  of  the  old  school  died  out.  Where,  they  sighed, 
shall  we  find  another  Mrs.  Glover  ?  where  a  Macready, 
a  James  Wallack,  a  Listen,  an  Elliston,  or  a  Mathews  ? 
Fears  were  voiced  that  the  ever  increasing  facilities  of  access 
from  town  to  town,  and  the  exodus  of  the  stars  to  the 
provinces,  at  large  salaries,  would  utterly  do  away  with 
provincial  theatres,  as  schools  of  art,  in  which  young  players, 
under  experienced  managers,  could  learn  thoroughly  their 
work,  without  being  driven  to  confront  a  London  audience 
before  years  of  study  had  equipped  them  for  the  ordeal. 

Such  were  the  forebodings  of  the  critics  during  this 
opening  decade  of  the  second  half  of  the  century :  and 
there  was  much  to  colour  their  arguments.  They  could 
not  be  expected  to  see  clearly,  as  we  can  to-day,  that  these 
years  of  apparent  decadence  were  also  days  of  healthy 
transition  from  the  old  order  to  the  new ;  for  on  the  first 
night  of  that  revival  of  "  Hearts  are  Trumps "  at  the 
Olympic,  August  25,  1851,  was  produced  Robertson's  first 
important  play,  "  A  Night's  Adventure  " — and  Robertson, 
with  the  Bancrofts,  may  be  looked  upon  as  a  welcome 
herald  of  the  modern  drama. 

Mrs.  Stirling,  meanwhile,'  was  appearing,  with  Leigh 
Murray,  Howe,  Lambert,  and  Miss  A.  Vining,  in  "  The 
Man  of  Law,"  a  post-revolution  play,  in  which,  as  so 
often  before,  the  leading  lady  must  needs  exert  all  her  wiles 
and  powers  of  fascination,  against  a  doughty  opponent. 
She  succeeded  once  more,  maintaining  fully  her  reputation 
as  the  first  actress  on  the  stage,  in  characters  requiring  a 


188     THE   STAGE  LIFE   OF   MRS.   STIRLING 

polished  style,  good  breeding,  and  the  art  of  elaborating 
effectively,  and  without  apparent  effort,  the  minutest  traits 
of  a  dramatic  portrait.  Ben  Webster,  too,  as  the  lawyer, 
subtle,  prolific  of  stratagems,  adept  at  intrigue,  smooth 
and  insinuating  of  address,  gave  an  unusually  excellent 
study. 

One  of  the  last  things  produced  before  the  Haymarket 
closed  temporarily,  on  July  21,  was  "  The  Spitalfields 
Weaver,"  in  which  a  then  promising  amateur,  J.  S.  Toole, 
made  his  first  professional  appearance. 


CHAPTER    XII 

"PEG    WOFFINGTON" 

1852-53 

A  holiday  in  Devon — Return  to  London — Reade  conceives  the  idea  of 
Mrs.  Stirling  as  "  Peg  Woffington  " — Collaboration  with  Taylor — Dis- 
agreements and  discords — Rehabilitation  of  the  actor  a  subject  then 
in  vogue  at  Paris — Authors'  respective  shares  in  "  Masks  and 
Faces  " — Criticisms  of  the  play — Of  Mrs.  Stirling  as  "  Peg  " — A 
triumphant  first  night — Knight's  comparison  between  Mrs.  Stirling 
and  Mrs.  Bancroft  as  "  Peg  " — Miss  Thorndyke  as  "  Peg  "  at  the 
Old  Vic. — Webster  as  "  Triplet " — Phillips's  portrait  of  Mrs.  Stirling 
as  "  Peg  " — Provincial  engagements — Mrs.  Stirling  unhappy  despite 
her  successes — Pathetic  letter  to  Mrs.  Baylis — The  causes — Edin- 
burgh and  Newcastle — Critique  in  the  Newcastle  Journal — A  "  state 
of  irritation  " — Glover,  Mrs.  Stirling,  and  Charles  Reade— Dangers 
and  difficulties. 

THIS  book  bearing  the  title  that  it  does,  I  do  not  propose 
greatly  to  concern  myself,  or  the  reader,  with  the  private 
life,  or  the  private  friendships,  of  Mrs.  Stirling ;  nor,  indeed, 
had  I  the  inclination,  do  I  possess  the  knowledge  necessary 
to  make  the  picture  complete.  An  occasional  momentary 
lifting  of  the  curtain,  however,  by  throwing  light  upon  my 
grandmother's  character  as  a  woman,  and  upon  the  often 
difficult  circumstances  in  which  her  stage-work  was  done, 
must  certainly  conduce  towards  a  more  complete,  and 
therefore  juster,  estimate  of  her  rank  as  an  artist ;  and,  at  the 
same  time,  by  humanizing  the  story,  will  afford  some  relief 
from  a  too  monotonous  recital  of  dramatic  events. 

As  will  have  been  gathered  from  a  single  sentence  of 
Charles  Reade  Js  letter  to  Mrs.  Baylis,  quoted  in  the  last 
chapter,  the  friendship  that  had  been  established  over  the 
manuscript  of  "  Christie  Johnstone "  between  the  young 
dramatist  and  the  admired  actress,  was  fast  developing, 
particularly  on  the  part  of  the  man,  whom  we  may  suppose 
planning  in  his  fertile  brain  many  schemes  for  her  advance- 

139 


140     THE  STAGE  LIFE  OF  MRS.   STIRLING 

ment,  and  concocting  the  plot  of  more  than  one  play  about 
the  personality  of  his  adored  Mrs.  Stirling. 

That  lady,  while  her  friend's  dreams  are  maturing,  is 
still  working  hard  at  the  Haymarket,  without  accomplishing 
anything  that  was  to  add  materially  to  her  reputation. 
Her  principal  parts,  from  January  to  June  1852,  were 
"  Lady  Gay  "  in  "  London  Assurance  "  ;  "  Fanny  Mor- 
rison "  in  Mark  Lemon's  "  Mind  Your  Own  Business " ; 
the  lead  in  Buckstone's  play  "  Married  Life,"  at  his  own 
benefit  performance ;  and  the  r61e  of  "  Mrs.  Moore "  in 
"  A  Novel  Expedient." 

By  the  middle  of  July  she  has  thrown  up  work  for  a 
time,  and  is  making  holiday,  with  her  daughter  Fanny,  in 
a  farmhouse,  at  Uphill,  Devon,  whence,  on  the  morning  of 
her  thirty-ninth  birthday,  she  writes  to  Mrs.  Baylis1  a  very 
characteristic  letter : 

Thursday  Morning, 
My  birthday, 

July  29,  1852. 
MY  DEAR  LITTLE  WOMAN, 

Here  we  are  in  a  great  dairy  farm  swimming  in  milk, 
cream,  curds,  whey,  cheeses,  Fan a  running  wild  with  cows,  fat 
pigs,  fowls,  and  curly-headed  children — such  bread — such  eggs — 
such  butter  as  you  have  no  idea  of!  You  don't  know  what 
bread  means  !  I  am  turning  into  a  complete  animal  ! — have  not 
opened  a  book  since  I've  been  here.  I  do  nothing  but  listen  to 
the  "  sad  sea  wave  " — sit  a  top  of  a  hill !  and  drink  in  the  fresh 
air — eat,  drink,  bathe,  and  sleep — and  with  all  that  the  day  is  gone 
before  I  feel  that  I  am  up  !  You  cannot  tell  how  I  wish  you  were 
here  !  We  are  at  '*  Uphill " — the  name  will  tell  you  that  it  rises 
from  the  sea — great  green  lanes — and  a  little  church  atop  of  a  hill 
that  breaks  your  back  to  climb  up  to  it !  Everything  smelling  of 
buttercups,  daisies,  fruit,  flowers,  cows  and  birds — all  the  doors  open 
— everybody  making  butter,  cheese,  and  truck — everybody  speaks 
to  everybody  as  they  pass  !  I've  tried  so  to  get  you  a  loaf,  but  they 
only  bake  on  Mondays,  and  'tis  too  stale,  but  here  is  a  wee  bit  of 
butter  just  for  you  to  taste,  and  two  eggs  Fan  has  just  carried  in  from 
under  the  poor  hen. 

You  shall  hear  from  me  by  post,  for  Mrs.  Gregory  goes  to  London 
with  this,  and  now  I  am  all  alone  with  Fan,  and  shall  have  time  to 
read  and  write.  If  you  can  spare  time  for  a  word  to  tell  me  of  your 

1  Grandmother  of  Miss  Lilian  Baylis.  the  present  Manager  of  the 
Old  Vic. 

8  Fanny  Stirling,  the  writer's  mother,  then  in  her  eleventh  year. 


"PEG  WOFFINGTON"  HI 

movements,  and  will  leave  it  at  Piccadilly  for  me,  Mrs.  Gregory  l 
comes  back  here  on  Sunday,  and  will  bring  it.  God  bless  you 
till  then. 

At  what  date  exactly  the  actress  returned  to  London, 
I  do  not  know;  but  suppose  it  to  have  been  during  the 
autumn  of  the  same  year. 

When  telling,  in  the  last  chapter,  the  origin  of  "  The 
Ladies'  Battle,"  I  mentioned  that  Charles  Reade,  at  Mrs. 
Stirling's  suggestion,  had  included  Tom  Taylor  among  the 
guests  invited  to  a  Sunday  dinner  party  at  the  Star  and 
Garter  Hotel,  at  Richmond.  The  two  young  dramatists 
took  to  one  another — for  a  time — and  Taylor  subsequently 
visited  Reade  at  Oxford,  where  the  latter  first  broached  to 
him  a  subject  that  "  had  been  seething  in  his  mind  from 
the  first  moment  that  he  met  Mrs.  Stirling — 4  Peg  Wofnngton ' 
as  the  heroine  of  a  play."  Peg's  facial  acquaintance,  by  the 
way,  he  had  already  made,  through  the  medium  of  the 
portrait  by  Hogarth,  in  the  Garrick  Club. 

Taylor  approved  the  idea;  collaboration  was  decided 
upon,  and — Reade  having  already  written  a  scene  or  two — 
they  played  battledore  and  shuttlecock  with  the  manu- 
script for  some  considerable  time,  without  getting  "  a  bit 
forarder."  Hoping  thereby  to  make  better  progress,  Reade 
went  to  stay  with  Taylor,  at  Chiswick,  and  while  his  host 
was  absent  at  office,  during  the  day,  wrote  scene  after  scene, 
that  Taylor — by  far  the  more  experienced  dramatist  of  the 
two — invariably  cut  out  at  night. 

Both  men  were  irritable  and  pugnacious,  and  were  soon 
at  loggerheads.  In  fact,  they  could  agree  upon  very  little 
concerning  the  play,  except  that  Mrs.  Stirling  was  to  be  its 
heroine,  a  request  to  which  she  had  consented,  subject  to 
certain  alterations  being  made  in  the  manuscript — "  this 
would  not  do,  and  that  would  not  do,"  when  the  play  was 
read  and  discussed  at  Mrs.  Baylis's  house.  When  the 
authors  ultimately  agreed  to  differ,  she  sided,  more  or  less, 
with  Taylor,  as  did  also  Ben  Webster,  who  had  accepted 
the  play  from  Taylor,  for  the  Haymarket. 

1  This  lady  I  presume  to  be  the  first  wife  of  Mr.  C.  H.  Gregory,  after- 
wards Sir  Charles  Hutton  Gregory,  the  well-known  civil  engineer,  whom 
Mrs.  Stirling  married  in  1894. 


142     THE   STAGE  LIFE   OF  MRS.   STIRLING 

Reade,  in  a  huff,  went  off  to  his  home  at  Ipsden,  and 
thence  to  a  hydro  at  Malvern,  whence  he  returned,  to  find 
the  comedy — willy-nilly — on  the  eve  of  production,  at  last. 
What  sort  of  a  fabrication  was  it,  that,  after  many  months 
of  wrangling  between  two  choleric  authors,  had  come  to  the 
test  of  public  opinion  ? 

The  subject — rehabilitation  of  an  actress's  character — 
was  rather  in  vogue  across  the  Channel  at  that  time,  and 
Tom  Taylor  and  Reade  decided  that  England  should  follow 
suit.  They  produced,  accordingly,  their  version,  for  the 
glorification  of  our  national  actress,  Peg  Woffington.  Con- 
cerning their  respective  shares  in  the  comedy,  there  has  been 
much  debate,  but  the  truth  is  now  clear.  The  main  idea 
was  Reade's  ;  so  were  most  of  the  characters  and  incidents. 
The  whole  of  the  garret  scene  was  his  also  ;  but  the  con- 
struction and  detail  of  the  play  were  mainly  Taylor's,  he 
being  by  far  the  more  experienced  man,  in  technical  matters. 
Taylor's  summing-up  was  thus  :  "  He  (Reade)  put  them 
(the  scenes)  together  higgeldy-piggledy.  They  stood  on  their 
heads,  and  I  put  them  on  their  heels." 

Knowing  the  story  of  its  growth,  one  is  not  surprised 
to  observe  that  "  Masks  and  Faces,"  from  the  constructional 
point  of  view,  is  poor.  Situations  and  characters  are  of  the 
stock  variety,  nor  is  even  the  most  telling  incident  new — 
the  face  in  the  picture  having  been  seen  already,  in  Bernard's 
"  Mummy  ";  and  a  face  through  a  curtain  in  Victor  Hugo's 
"  Notre  Dame."  The  weakest  point  of  all,  however,  is  the 
plot,  which  is  of  the  very  thinnest  texture,  being  very  little 
more  than  a  series  of  pictures  cleverly  combined.  "  Masks 
and  Faces,"  nevertheless,  as  the  critic  of  the  Leader  l  pointed 
out, 

has  the  elements  of  eternal  success — character  and  emotion.  .  .  . 
Laughter  and  tears  of  sympathy  alternate  through  the  varying  scene  ; 
bright,  ingenious  dialogue,  playing  like  lambent  flame,  stimulates  the 
intellect ;  and  homely  pathos,  homely  mirth,  kind  hearts  and  loving 
voices  gently  touch  the  various  chords  of  emotion. 

I  should  not  have  ventured  to  describe  the  comedy  quite 
so  lyrically,  nor  so  exuberantly ;  but  that  is  how  "  Masks 

1  November  27,  1852.     G.  H.  Lewes  was  the  writer. 


"PEG  WOFFINGTON"  148 

and  Faces,"  at  its  first  production,  struck  one  of  the  most 
intelligent  critics  of  his  century.     He  continues  : 

Mrs.  Stirling  has  not,  for  a  long  while,  had  a  part  which  shows 
her  off  to  such  advantage,  and  she  evidently  resolved  not  to  let  a  bit 
of  it  slip  through  her  fingers.  She  was  gay,  natural,  touching,  loving 
throughout,  and  made  one  perfectly  understand  Ernest  Vane's  infatua- 
tion, though  not  his  subsequent  desertion  of  her  for  his  wife. 

Other  journals  were  equally  emphatic. 

Stepping  gracefully  from  seriousness  to  gaiety,  and  equally  natural 
in  both,  Mrs.  Stirling  is  completely  in  her  element  as  "  Peg  Woffington," 
and  has  all  the  benefit  of  a  contrast  in  the  girlish,  effusive  manner 
which  is  very  prettily  assumed  by  Miss  Rose  Bennett  in  the  character 
of  "  Mrs.  Vane."  * 

The  Daily  News  2  shrewdly  pointed  out,  as  a  defect  of  the 
play,  that  while  the  idealized  Mrs.  Woffington  was  just 
such  a  character  as  Kitty  Clive  was  in  real  life,  the  "  Kitty 
Clive  "  of  "  Masks  and  Faces  "  has  a  part  that  is  insignificant 
and  untrue.  The  actor,  Quin,  of  Bath  fame,  moreover, 
was  less  of  a  bounder  than  Tom  Taylor  would  have  him 
to  be.  Nevertheless,  whatever  the  comedy's  defects, 
Webster — who  played  "  Triplet  " — Mrs.  Stirling,  and  her 
companions  touched  all  hearts.  And  upon  the  stage — with 
the  vast  majority  of  the  paying  public — hearts  are  always 
trumps. 

The  first  night  was  a  memorable  one  for  all  con- 
cerned. 

Webster  was  a  bit  loose  in  the  text  (he  always  is) ;  then  that 
infernal  "  Zummersetshire  "  dialect  was  against  him,  but  he  can  act ; 
and  as  for  La  Stirling,  she  carried  everything  before  her  like  wild- 
fire ;  and  the  curtain  fell  upon  a  scene  of  unbounded  enthusiasm. 

I  forgot  all  about  the  alterations  and  the  rows,  and  ramped  round 
in  a  transport  of  delight,  embraced  my  faithless  "  Peggy  "  in  the  sight 
of  all  Israel,  hugged  Taylor  and  Webster,  and  then,  for  the  first  time 
in  my  life,  was  called  for ;  and  Taylor  led  me  before  the  curtain,  and 
the  house  rose  at  us,  and  I  cried  for  joy.3 

Of  Mrs.  Stirling's   performance   many  play-goers,   then 

1  The,  Times,  November  22,  1852.  •  November  22,  1862. 

*  Coleman's  Reade,  p.  94. 


144     THE   STAGE  LIFE   OF  MRS.   STIRLING 

young,  retained  for  years  a  delightful  impression.    A  critic 
of  1869  writes  : 

In  "  Peg  Woffington "  all  her  talents  shine  forth  with  peculiar 
lustre  ;  in  fact,  we  may  judge  of  them  from  that  impersonation  alone. 
Peg  Woffington  was  not  only  a  great  actress,  but  a  woman  of 
wonderful  natural  powers,  cramped  and  perverted  by  the  imper- 
fection of  her  early  training.  She  was  perpetually  yearning  for  that 
which  the  accidents  of  her  birth  and  position  denied  her.  These 
conflicting  passions  are  fully  shown  in  Mrs.  Stirling's  impersonation, 
which  will  be  always  remembered  among  playgoers  as  one  of  the 
finest  efforts  of  the  modern  stage. 

In  the  Daily  Graphic  of  January  1,  1896,  we  get  another 
pleasant  memory  of  "  Peg  "  : 

Mrs.  Stirling  was  at  that  time,  even,  disposed  to  be  artificial  and 
mannered.  This  tendency,  in  this  character,  she  held  completely 
in  restraint,  and  the  scenes  in  the  garret  of  "  Triplet "  were  among 
the  most  bewitching  in  comedy.  The  appearance  of  the  face  peeping 
through  the  hole  in  the  picture,  and  maintaining  a  mock  gravity  in 
the  presence  of  the  absurd  censure  of  the  critics,  is  one  of  the  things 
that  the  recollection  is  delighted  to  retain. 

Joseph  Knight  has  left  us *  an  interesting  comparison 
between  Mrs.  Stirling's  methods  and  those  of  Mrs.  Bancroft, 
who  later  succeeded  her  in  the  part : 2 

Mrs.  Bancroft  has  never  failed  to  cast  new  light  upon  a  character 
in  which  she  appeared.  Her  "  Peg  Woffington "  differs  from  that 
of  Mrs.  Stirling  in  more  than  one  important  respect.  With  Mrs. 
Stirling  the  triumph  of  goodness  which  raised  the  actress  to  the  capacity 
for  complete  self-abnegation,  seemed  due  to  a  rich  and  ripe  nature, 
and  to  an  overflow  of  animal  spirits.  With  the  latter  exponent  it 
springs  from  a  succession  of  impulses.  To  accomplish  the  sacrifice 
cost  more  in  the  later  interpretation  than  in  the  earlier.  Something 
in  the  bright  being  Mrs.  Stirling  presented  seemed  antagonistic  to 
sorrow.  With  Mrs.  Bancroft  impulses,  bad  and  good,  followed  each 
other  in  wave-like  succession.  .  .  . 

Speaking  of  a  more  recent  revival — at  the  Old  Vic 
when  that  accomplished  actress,  Miss  Sybil  Thorndyke, 
played  "  Peg  " — Mr.  Newton  Baylis  recently  expressed  to 

1  Theatrical  Notes,  1893,  p.  74. 

'  Lady  Bancroft's  rendering  was  deliberate.  She  "  could  see  but  one 
way  out  of  the  difficulty,  to  treat  the  part  in  a  distinctly  new  way." 
The  Bancrofts,  p.  173. 


"PEG  WOFFINGTON'  145 

the  writer  his  recollection  of  the  wonderful  fascination  of  the 
original  "  Peg,"  in  the  part,  and  with  what  extraordinary 
vivacity  she  always  threw  herself  into  the  jig,  in  the  garret 
scene.  With  recollections  of  the  original  in  his  mind,  Mr. 
Baylis  ventured  to  offer  Miss  Thorndyke  some  hints  con- 
cerning the  dancing  of  that  jig,  with  the  result  that  it  was 
encored  every  night,  when  he  would  jokingly  remind  the 
latest  "  Peg " :  "  That  was  my  encore,  you  know,  not 
yours  !  "  Mr.  Ben  Greet  tells  me  that  he  looks  upon  "  Peg 
Woffington  "  as  a  test  part  for  a  comedy  actress.  And  he 
should  know ;  for  he  has  played  "  Triplet "  about  one  thousand 
times,  to  about  a  dozen  "  Pegs,"  of  whom  Miss  Thorndyke 
was  the  latest  and  best ;  though  none  of  them  came  up  to 
the  original. 

Concerning  the  success  of  Webster's  "  Triplet,"  in  the 
original  production,  Westland  Marston  has  written  thus  :  1 

The  study  of  "  Triplet "  in  the  actor's  hands  might  be  taken  as 
a  type  of  the  penurious  author  of  the  time.  The  distraction  amid 
the  sordid  cares  of  life  ;  the  nervous  impatience,  soon  atoned  for  by 
contrition ;  the  moods  of  gloomy  reverie,  at  times  half  pierced  by 
the  hope  of  a  nature  originally  sanguine,  but  which  time  and  suffering 
had  tamed  and  daunted  ;  the  desperation  with  which,  when  unable 
to  please  himself  with  "  Peg's  "  likeness,  he  plunged  his  knife  through 
the  canvas,  together  with  an  artlessness  of  look  and  voice  which  spoke 
an  unworldly  mind — all  these  degrees  of  the  better  mental  worker 
were  so  truly  indicated,  that  a  glance,  a  change  of  tone,  however 
delicate,  a  stoop,  a  step  backward  or  forward,  or  a  fluttering  move- 
ment of  the  hand,  were  more  significant  even  than  the  excellent  dia- 
logue in  which  he  took  part.  And  withal  this  "  Triplet "  was  a 
gentleman ;  no  poverty  of  garb  or  surroundings  could  hide  that ;  while 
the  perfect  unconsciousness  with  which  this  inner  refinement  showed 
itself,  was  a  touch  of  art  so  true  and  unpretending  that  it  was  seen 
only  in  its  effects. 

Of  Mrs.  Stirling's  personal  appearance  at  this  period  of 
her  life — she  was  in  her  fortieth  year  when  "  Masks  and 
Faces  "  was  first  produced — and  of  the  type  of  face  that, 
for  night  after  night,  gazed  through  the  hole  in  the  hacked 
picture,  Charles  Reade  has  already  given  the  reader  a  vivid 
idea.2  There  is  also  the  portrait  of  her  as  "  Peg  Woffington," 
painted  by  Henry  Wyndham  Phillips,3  that  hangs  in  the 

1  Our  Recent  Actors,  i.  246.         a  See  ante,  p.  129.         8  Opposite  p.  146. 

10 


146     THE  STAGE  LIFE   OF   MRS.   STIRLING 

Garrick  Club ;  and  a  replica  of  it — or  vice  versa — in  the 
Shakespeare  Memorial  Gallery,  at  Stratford-on-Avon.  The 
picture  is  that  of  a  very  pretty  woman,  delicately  graceful, 
with  a  rather  long,  oval  face,  large  expressive  eyes,  arched 
eyebrows,  a  straight  nose,  a  daintily  curved  mouth  and  chin, 
and  a  demure,  almost  wistful  expression,  that,  one  easily 
supposes,  may,  upon  slight  provocation,  become  merry  or  even 
roguish.  The  costume  is  charming — a  scarlet  dress,  cut  low, 
and  edged  with  white ;  a  broad-brimmed  hat  to  match,  and 
a  lace  cap  beneath — in  the  fashion  of  the  time — tied  under 
the  chin  with  a  broad  white  knot.  The  lady  wears  a  blue- 
grey  cloak,  against  a  dark  background. 

The  original  portrait  of  Mrs.  Stirling  [according  to  the  Catalogue 
of  the  Garrick  Club  l]  was  painted  for  the  late  Mr.  Tom  Taylor,  and 
was  ultimately  in  Mrs.  Stirling's  possession.2  The  sittings  were  given 
after  performances,  late  at  night,  in  Mr.  Phillips's  studio.  The  style 
and  treatment  are  in  part  borrowed  from  an  old  miniature.  The 
picture  used  during  representation  at  the  Hay  market  Theatre  was 
also  a  sketch  by  the  (same)  artist,  with  a  practical  cut  for  the 
insertion  of  the  face. 

Regarded  as  a  revelation  of  character,  this  portrait 
seems  to  me  to  differ  from  and  to  be  inferior  to  those  painted 
later,  in  this — that  Phillips  has  not  conveyed  so  much  as  a 
hint  of  the  rich,  ripe,  mellow  humour  and  joy  of  life,  in  which 
the  part  abounds,  and  which  was  generally  characteristic 
of  the  actress — that  humour  so  plainly  visible  in  the  other 
portrait  of  her  at  the  Garrick,3  and  in  photographs  taken 
round  about  the  period  of  her  "  Nurse  "  at  the  Lyceum. 
I  cannot  easily  escape  the  conclusion  that  the  painter — in 
an  attempt  to  make  the  face  conventionally  pretty — has 
refined  and  idealized  his  subject  out  of  all  true  resemblance. 
Mrs.  Stirling  was  a  beautiful  woman — one  who  knew  her 
well  described  her  to  me  as  "the  loveliest  creature  he  ever 
saw  " — but  that  beauty  was  not  of  a  classic  order,  as  Charles 
Reade's  description  proves.  The  charm  of  the  face  depended 
less  upon  regularity  of  form  and  feature,  than  upon  expres- 
sion, intelligence,  and  animation. 

1  No.  96. 

2  Who  bequeathed  it — or  a  replica  of  it — to  Lady  Bancroft.     Bancroft 
Memoirs,  p.  173.  •  Opposite  p.  180. 


MRS.    STIRLING   AS    "  PEG    WOFFINGTON. 

From  the  Painting  by  H.  WYNDHAM  PHII/LIPS,  in  the  Garrick  Club. 
Reproduced  by  courtesy  of  the  Committee  of  the  Garrick  Club. 


To  fare  p.  146. 


t     -O      •^0     . 

»; 


"PEG  WOFFINGTON'  147 

Mrs.  Stirling,  of  course,  in  common  with  other  leading 
players  of  her  day,  frequently,  and  profitably,  filled  in  the 
weeks  between  her  London  engagements,  by  touring  the 
provinces.1  I  have  not  thought  it  worth  while  to  dig  out, 
from  the  provincial  press,  all  the  details,  nor  even  all  the 
dates  of  these  tours.  It  will  be  remembered,  however, 
that  the  whole  period,  from  the  close  of  her  engagement 
at  the  Pavilion  Theatre,  in  October  1832,  to  her  appearance 
at  the  Adelphi,  London,  in  January  1836,  was  spent  in  the 
provinces.  From  that  time  onward  she  toured  occasionally, 
especially  during  the  fifties  and  early  sixties,  when  her 
established  position  assured  her  the  reception,  and  salary, 
of  a  star.2 

In  October  1851,  for  example,  she  was  engaged  for  a 
week,  at  the  Amphitheatre,  Liverpool,  in  "  The  Reigning 
Favourite"  ("Adrienne  Lecouvreur"),  "The  Factory  Girl" 
("All  is  not  Gold  that  Glitters"),  and  "King  Rene's 
Daughter,"  concerning  which  last  the  correspondent  of  the 
Era  wrote  :  "  We  find  it  a  task  of  some  difficulty  to  decide 
whether  she  or  Miss  Helen  Faucit  play  it  the  best."  As  for 
"  All  that  Glitters,"  the  request,  "  Take  a  card,"  became  a 
catch-word  wherever  the  melodrama  was  put  on. 

March  1853  brought  her  to  the  Theatre  Royal,  Edin- 
burgh, where  she  played  for  a  week  in  "  Time  Tries  All  " 
and  "  Masks  and  Faces,"  which  latter  had  already  super- 
seded "  The  Reigning  Favourite,"  as  the  most  popular  play 
in  her  repertoire.  The  success  of  the  performance,  as  a 
whole,  does  not  appear  to  have  been  so  complete  as  in 
England,  for,  with  the  possible  exception  of  Gourlay,  who 
played  "  Triplet,"  the  rest  of  the  company  were  unprepared 
and  imperfect ;  and  the  critic  of  the  Scotsman,  in  the  "  gude  " 
Scottish  fashion  of  his  time,  commented  adversely  upon  the 
moral  tone  of  the  comedy.  Everywhere,  however,  the  leading 
lady  herself  conquered  all  hearts,  and  won,  not  infrequently, 
a  reception  that  can  only  be  described  as  triumphant. 

Here  then  some  readers,  unmindful  of  what  has  gone 
before,  may  well  be  imagining  the  actress — famous,  feted, 

1  She  received  about  this  time  a  liberal  offer  from  America,  but  declined 
it.     So  far  as  I  know,  she  never  played  further  afield  than  Scotland. 
*  Her  provincial  salary  sometimes  reached  £100  a  week. 


148     THE   STAGE  LIFE   OF  MRS.   STIRLING 

and  rich — as  among  the  happiest  and  most  enviable  of 
mortals.  Not  so  smoothly,  alas  !  run  the  invisible  under- 
currents of  our  lives.  Mrs.  Stirling,  far  from  being  happy, 
was  now  at  war  with  herself,  as  witness  the  following  letter 
to  Mrs.  Baylis,  written  from  Edinburgh  at  about  this  period 
of  her  life  : 1 

55,  PRINCE'S  STREET,  EDINBURGH, 

Monday  Night. 
(Probably  March  21,  1853.) 

MY  DEAR  MRS.  BAYLIS, 

I  was  glad  to  find  a  line  from  you  with  my  letters  to-day. 
My  time  is  so  filled  up,  or  I  could  be  very  wretched  at  being  away 
from  home. 

I  have  made  a  grand  success,  you  must  know  !  I  cannot  spare 
the  newspapers  for  you,  but  I  will  keep  you  a  copy  of  them  all,  for 
extracts  are  being  printed  for  Glascow  (sic),  where  I  play  next  Monday, 
and  as  there  are  no  trains  out  of  this  Holy  drunken  place  on  Sundays, 
why  I  can't  go  to  Glascow  until  Monday  morning,  as  I  play  here 
Saturday  night — so  any  letters  posted  after  Friday  night's  post  must 
be  directed  to  me  at  the  Prince's  Theatre  Royal,  Glascow.  The  people 
here  are  warm  and  kind  beyond  anything,  and  they  are  talking  already 
about  my  going  back.  I  am  writing  for  an  extension  to  Webster, 
and  if  I  get  it,  most  probably  should  return  here  after  Glasgow,  then 
go  to  Newcastle,  but  all  that  is  in  the  clouds  at  present,  and  yet  with 
all  success  and  kindness  and  so  on,  I  am  longing  to  get  back  home. 
Oh  !  if  mine  was  a  real  happy  home,  what  a  home-bird  I  should  be  ! 
My  little  Fan  goes  to  Malvern  to-morrow  I  hope  she  will  get  there 
safely. 

You  must  not  miss  me  yet,  dear  little  woman,  though  I  feel  my- 
self as  though  I  had  been  away  an  age,  and  can  hardly  believe  that 
I  have  only  played  four  nights  of  my  engagement. 

My  dear  little  friend,  I  feel  that  I  am  hardly  the  right  sort  of 
companion  for  you  in  your  unhappiness — you  ought  to  be  with  those 
who  could  not  make  it  a  subject  of  conversation,  or  if  they  did  should 
be  better  able  to  advise  you  than  I.  Pity  is  not  good  for  you,  be 
sure — be  certain  that  unhappiness  is  doled  out  to  us  all  pretty  evenly  ; 
the  happiest  person  one  could  find  would  tell  us  there  was  something 
wanting,  depend  on  it. 

If  your  poor  sister  herself  is  well  and  safe,  I  think  the  poor 
child  not  living  a  happiness,  tho'  I'm  quite  aware  I  should  be  looked 
upon  as  a  wretch  for  saying  so- — one  trouble  and  responsibility  (and 
perhaps  unhappiness  in  the  end)  the  less  for  her. 

Yes  !  The  gude  folk  here  in  this  land  o'  cakes  do  like  me  and 
are  civil,  and  I  feel  how  hard-hearted  and  ungrateful  I  am  in  not 

1  I  cannot  exactly  determine  the  date.  Certainly  it  is  between 
1852  and  1854,  probably  during  spring  of  1853. 


44  PEG  WOFFINGTON'  149 

loving  them  in  return.  The  penalty  one  pays  in  heaping  all  one's 
love  on  any  one  particular  being  is  a  kind  of  hardening  of  the  heart  to 
all  others'  amiabilities  and  kindness.  We  lose  much  comfort  through 
this,  I  am  convinced,  and  so  my  theory  is  proved,  that  all  is  ironed 
out  pretty  smoothly  by  Dame  Fate  or  whoever  it  is  does  these  things. 
I  only  know  that  with  kindness,  success,  money,  a  dear  child  such 
as  there  are  but  few — I  am  not  happy  !  and  I  know,  at  the  same 
time,  'tis  because  I  am  not  good  ! 


Those  pathetic  closing  lines  shed  a  revealing  light  upon 
Mrs.  Stirling's  state  of  mind  during  this  period  of  her  life, 
and  afford  a  typical  example  of  the  ceaseless  mental  warfare 
that  is  waged  between  the  artist  and  the  mother,  in  many 
women's  hearts.  I  have  not  the  slightest  doubt — this  letter 
and  others  that  will  follow  make  it  too  evident — that,  for 
all  her  stage  triumphs,  my  grandmother  was  in  secret 
conflict  with  her  profession,  and  was  longing,  with  all  the 
intensity  of  her  nature,  for  a  complete  domestic  happiness, 
that  was  to  be  denied  her  utterly  until  perhaps  the  last 
year  or  so  of  her  long  life.  Upon  one  particular  being  she 
had  set  all  her  affection,  and  that  being  was  not  a  man  ; 
it  was  her  daughter,  Fanny,  from  whom,  nevertheless,  cir- 
cumstance, and  the  coming  years,  were,  at  last,  completely 
to  alienate  her. 

Yet  the  round  of  work  must  be  accomplished,  and  the 
unclouded  face  conceal  the  aching  heart.  From  Edinburgh 
the  actress  went  to  the  Theatre  Royal  in  Dunlop  Street, 
Glasgow,  where  she  played  "  Peg,"  for  a  week,  to  the 
"  Triplet "  of  Glover,1  the  manager,  who  became,  it  seems 
— or  would  have  become — one  of  her  closest  friends.  Her 
success  here  was  complete.  The  Glasgow  Herald  records 
"  bumper  houses,"  "  deafening  acclamation,"  and  "  de- 
lighted audiences."  At  her  benefit,  on  April  14,  she 
played  in  "  The  Ladies'  Battle  "  and  "  Masks  and  Faces  "  ; 
then  went  off  to  Newcastle — her  first  appearance  in  that 
town — where,  in  addition  to  "  Peg,"  she  played  "  Adrienne," 
and  "  Julia  Amor  "  in  "  Love  and  Charity."  2 

Concerning  her  art  the  critic  of  the  Newcastle  Journal* 
wrote  an  appreciation  that  is  perhaps  worth  preserving, 

1  Glover  had  taken  over  the  theatre  in  the  autumn  of  1852. 

2  April  11-23,  1853.  3  April  16,  1853. 


150     THE   STAGE  LIFE   OF  MRS.   STIRLING 

though  I  do  not  agree  with  the  "  reflecting  critic's  "  definition 
of  art  set  forth  in  the  first  paragraph  : 

As  Mrs.  Stirling  is  no  ordinary  actor,  it  may  not  be  amiss  to  notice 
the  kind  of  art  a  Newcastle  audience  has  made  acquaintance  with 
in  the  person  of  the  artist.  All  reflecting  critics  are  agreed  that  "  art 
is  a  true  but  brilliant  copy  of  nature,"  and  there  is  the  key  to  Mrs. 
Stirling.  Such  as  retain  a  lingering  faith  in  the  existence  of  such 
things  in  art  as  a  stage  walk,  or  a  stage  voice,  or  stage  gestures,  will 
be  staggered  at  first,  and  ultimately  converted  by  the  simplicity  and 
truth  of  Mrs.  Stirling,  who  is  simple  and  true,  because  she  is  as  profound 
in  art,  as  those  who  are  not  simple  and  true  are  shallow.  In  common 
with  Mdlle.  Rachel,  this  artist  has  discovered  that  deep  passion  can 
only  be  represented  by  an  apparent  attempt  to  repress  and  force  it 
in,  never  by  that  obvious  attempt  to  force  it  out  that  we  call  rant, 
and  therefore,  like  Rachel,  and  unlike  all  other  tragedians,  she  never 
rants  under  any  circumstances  whatever  ;  but  yet  she  holds  the  audience 
with  iron  power  in  moments  of  passion.  The  best  evidence  of  her 
truth  is,  that  the  audience  reflect  back  the  exact  image  of  her  emotion. 
When  she  personifies  sorrow,  they  do  not  exhibit  applause,  which 
represents  admiration,  but  tears,  which  prove  sympathy.  When  she 
impersonates  gaiety,  the  heart  really  warms  and  exults  under  her 
sunny  smile,  and  the  rich  music  of  her  laugh  and  voice.  But  perhaps 
her  greatest  trait  is  her  power  of  genuine  personation.  Few  actors 
possess  this  ;  still  fewer  actresses.  If  the  general  run  even  of  admired 
performances  are  looked  into,  it  will  be  found  that  the  actor  has, 
as  far  as  he  is  concerned,  varied  himself  but  little.  The  writers, 
in  giving  one  man  different  words,  sentiments,  and  actions  have  made 
nearly  all  the  difference  that  ever  shows  itself.  Miss  H.  Faucit's, 
Miss  Glyn's,  Mr.  Brooke's  performances,  have,  spite  of  their  rhetorical 
beauties,  this  considerable  flaw.  For  this  is  not  the  Histrionic  Art, 
as  distinguished  from  all  branches  of  the  Rhetorical  Art ;  it  is  not 
the  full  measure  of  art  as  practised  by  Garrick,  Oldfield,  and  Woffington, 
by  Rachel  and  Bouffe  in  France,  and  in  a  smaller  walk  by  Wigan 
and  Webster,  and  in  a  wide  range  by  Mrs.  Stirling.  This  lady  is  the 
artist  of  the  day  who  has,  partly  from  nature  and  immense  study, 
the  rare  power  of  dropping  Mrs.  Stirling  in  her  dressing-room,  and 
coming  on  the  stage  a  Frenchwoman,  an  Englishwoman,  a  countess, 
a  charity  girl,  a  peasant,  an  actress,  a  virgin,  a  matron,  a  prude,  a 
coquette,  etc.,  etc.,  with  face,  mien,  voice,  manner,  gesture,  all  exactly 
fitting  the  part  of  the  hour,  and  not  its  predecessor  or  successor.  And 
this  is  the  great  art  of  acting,  as  distinguished  from  the  great  art  of 
speaking,  which  is  rare,  though  not  so  rare  as  the  other.  Our  readers 
will,  we  think,  understand  at  once  what  we  are  endeavouring  to  point 
out,  when  they  see  the  Proteus-like  powers  of  Mrs.  Stirling  exhibit 
themselves  in  one  or  two  characters  of  an  opposite  description.  Mrs. 
Stirling  plays  tragedy,  comedy,  and  farce  ;  and  while  she  is  upon 
the  stage,  it  is  impossible  to  say  which  she  does  best,  but  if  we  look 


M 


PEG  WOFFINGTON"  151 


at  the  number  and  character  of  her  pieces,  it  will  be  evident  that 
she  has  a  predilection,  however  well  concealed  ;  and  this  predilection 
we  pronounce  to  be  in  favour  of  genteel  or  interesting  comedy,  or 
the  higher  kind  of  drama.  Until  lately  the  novel  writers  understood 
the  public  better  than  (did)  the  playwrights,  but  latterly  these  have 
learned  to  tell  novels  upon  the  stage  .  .  .  naturally  such  a  story  will 
be  at  one  moment  gay,  at  another  sad,  for  .  .  .  human  life  is  your 
true  comtdie  larmoyante,  and  lies,  together  with  the  truth,  between 
the  monotonous  groan  of  tragedy  and  the  monotonous  grin  of  farce. 
Of  this  comtdie  larmoyante  Mrs.  Stirling  is  the  priestess.  .  .  .  We 
hear  on  all  sides  that  Mrs.  Stirling's  "  Peg  Woffington  "  is  the  most 
unrivalled  performance  seen  for  many  years  upon  the  French  or  British 
stage.  There  are  actors  who  gain  the  first  night  all  the  applause 
that  will  ever  be  due  to  them.  On  the  contrary,  it  requires  many 
nights  and  close  attention  to  appreciate  the  various  and  subtle  art 
of  so  profound  an  artist  as  Mrs.  Stirling. 

In  addition  to,  and  partly  because  of,  her  other  troubles, 
Mrs.  Stirling  was  beginning  already  to  suffer  in  health, 
and  for  that  reason,  probably,  seems  to  have  rested  during 
the  summer  of  1853.  She  accepted,  however,  an  autumn 
engagement,  to  appear  for  six  nights,  from  September  19, 
at  the  Theatre  Royal,  Liverpool,  in  "  Masks  and  Faces."  1 
The  critic  of  the  Liverpool  Journal,  whose  memories  went 
back  to  the  time  of  Miss  O'Neill,  described  "  Peg  Woffington  " 
as  the  greatest  performance  he  had  ever  seen,  and  Mrs. 
Stirling  as  the  greatest  actress  of  the  age. 

From  the  Royal  she  migrated,  with  Compton,  to  the 
Liverpool  Amphitheatre,  where  she  played — in  addition  to 
"  Masks  and  Faces  "— in  "  Love  and  Charity,"  "  My  Wife's 
Daughter/'  and  "  She  Stoops  to  Conquer."  Dramatically 
successful,  she  was  still  unhappy  and  restless,  if,  as  I  suppose, 
the  following  fragment  of  a  letter,  written  to  Mrs.  Baylis, 
may  be  dated  from  Liverpool  during  this  engagement : 

44  ...  He  sends  a  boy  instantly,  who  takes  me  to  the  first  den 
he  can  find,  and  such  a  den  !  You  can  fancy  nothing  like  it !  So 
picture  me  here,  wet,  cold,  wretched,  with  nothing  to  do — my  books 
lost — my  journey  useless,  too  wet  to  go  out  to  try  and  find  even  a 
clean  den  to  sit  down  in,  and  this  prospect  all  to-morrow — no  one 
to  speak  to,  no  nothing  !  Fancy  all  this  added  to  the  state  of  irri- 
tation I  was  already  in  ;  and,  just  to  crown  all,  this  moment  comes 
from  Wigan  a  letter  in  answer  to  one  I  had  sent  begging  for  a  week 

1  Compton  the  comedian  was  with  her,  appearing  in  the  after  pieces, 
"Friend  Waggles,"  and  "Founded  on  Fact." 


152     THE   STAGE  LIFE   OF  MRS.   STIRLING 

in  Edinbro',  beginning  17th  Oct.,  and  for  which  Wyndham  offers 
me  a  clear  £100,  and  I  am  obliged  to  refuse  it  because  Wigan  will 
be  ready  to  open  on  the  7th,1  and  I  am  in  both  the  opening  pieces, 
he  says  !  Good-bye — write  to  me  here  till  Friday. 

The  poor  lady's  "  state  of  irritation  "  is  easily  accounted 
for  by  troubles  more  serious  than  the  discomforts  of  a  pro- 
vincial tour.  Borne  hither  and  thither  by  her  duties,  while 
her  heart  was  with  her  daughter  at  home ;  in  failing  health, 
beset,  as  every  attractive  actress  is,  to  some  extent,  by  the 
importunate  attentions  of  men,  Mrs.  Stirling  knew  not  where 
to  find  heart's  ease.  She  was,  as  we  have  seen,  on  terms 
of  friendship  with  Glover,  the  manager  of  the  Theatre  Royal 
at  Glasgow,  friendly  also  with  Charles  Reade,2  who — sanguine, 
impetuous,  and  dazzled  by  her  charm  and  ability — was 
offering  to  ally  his  fortunes  with  hers,  and  to  help  her  to 
raise  herself — as  he  then  believed  she  could,  and  would — to 
the  very  highest  pinnacle  of  professional  advancement. 

He  had  written  to  her,  some  time  previously,  a  letter  to 
that  effect,  too  intimate  and  too  passionate  for  quotation. 
What  the  tenor  of  her  reply  was  I  do  not  know,  but  I  suppose 
it  to  have  been  more  cold  than  cordial.  There  had  followed 
a  breach  of  friendship,  and,  probably,  some  sort  of  recon- 
ciliation. The  atmosphere,  nevertheless,  was  still  electric, 
as  Charles  Reade  was  fully  aware,  when  he  wrote  to  Mrs. 
Baylis  the  following  letter,  probably  in  the  early  autumn 
of  1853 : 

Charles  Reade  to  Mrs.  Baylis. 

MAGDALEN  COLLEGE,  OXFORD. 

(No  date.) 
DEAR  MRS.  B., 

When  a  storm  is  blowing  it  is  well  to  give  all  parties  notice. 
That  shuffling  personage  Mr.  Glover  received  from  me,  whilst  I  was 
at  Newcastle,  a  request  that  he  would  settle  with  me,  for  the  first 

1  She  began  at  the  Olympic  on  the  17th,  not  the  7th,  the  pieces  being 
"  Plot  and  Passion  "  and  "  The  Camp  at  the  Olympic." 

2  Miss    Ellen    Terry's    penetrating    description    of    Charles    Reade    is : 
"  Dear,    kind,    unjust,    generous,    cautious,    impulsive,    passionate,    gentle 
Charles  Reade,  who  combined  so  many  qualities  far  asunder  as  the  poles. 
He  was  placid  and  turbulent,  yet  always  majestic.     He  was  inexplicable, 
and  entirely  lovable — a   stupid   old   dear,   and   as  wise   as   Solomon.     He 
seemed  guileless,  and  yet  had  moments  of  suspicion  and  craftiness  worthy 
of  the  wisdom  of  the  serpent." 


"PEG   WOFFINGTON'  153 

time  in  his  life — no  answer.  A  month  later  I  proposed  to  him  to 
pay  rae  a  small  sum  for  "  Masks  and  Faces  "  and  "  Ladies'  Battle  " 
(I  asked  him  some  four  or  five  pounds,  I  think,  for  the  two),  and  also 
settle  with  me  for  "  Gold,"  which  is  the  subject  of  a  distinct  agree- 
ment. His  Treasurer  writes  to  me,  by  order  no  doubt,  and  tells  me 
he  is  out — as  if  a  manager  was  ever  out  of  communication  with  his 
theatre  and  its  affairs.  On  this,  after  awhile  insisting  upon  an  answer 
— evasion  or  procrastination  having  failed,  Mr.  G.  now  bids  his 
Treasurer  take  a  very  different  ground.  Mr.  Houghton  writes  to 
me  to  say  that  I  had  promised  Glover  my  plays  gratis  during  Mrs. 
Stirling's  engagements,  and  that  it  was  only  on  this  understanding 
Glover  produced  them  and  that  but  for  this  he  would  not  have  * 
produced  them.  I  answer  Glover,  I  remind  him  of  the  simple  Truth  : 
viz.  that  I  offered  him  both  plays  gratis  provided  he  shared  the  house 
with  Mrs.  Stirling — for  this  obvious  reason — I  should  have  been 
giving  them  not  to  Sam  Glover  but  to  Mrs.  S. 

He  declined  this  proposal  in  presence  of  Mrs.  S.  at  Glasgow,  and 
said  very  justly  that  the  Author's  fees  were  too  small  an  inducement 
to  lead  him  to  share  with  a  star.  He  therefore  forfeited  my  offer, 
preferring  another  advantage  to  it — he  separated  entirely  his  interest 
from  Mrs.  Stirling's  and  of  course  he  shall  pay  me  something  for  my 
plays.  I  have  not  asked  the  shabby  dog  much,  and  if  he  won't  pay 
that  little,  I  shall  instantly  take  legal  proceedings  against  him,  and 
as  I  have  told  him,  if  he  gives  me  that  trouble  I  shall  take  the  full 
benefit  of  the  Act,  and  sue  him  for  40s.  per  representation  both  of 
"  Masks  and  Faces  "  and  "  Ladies'  Battle."  Liberality  or  kindness 
is  wasted  upon  the  blackguards  of  the  stage. 

When  I  brought  Mrs.  Stirling  and  this  man  together  I  charged 
him  nothing  for  my  trifles  ;  this  was  perhaps  from  regard  for  her, 
but  she  benefited  nothing  by  it — it  was  this  man  who  benefited. 

A  year  later,  although  Mrs.  S.  and  I  were  not  friends,  this  beggar 
still  got  my  work  for  nothing — because,  God  knows  why,  I  did  not 
choose — in  short,  I  can't  tell  why,  but  this  animal  was  the  gainer. 

And  now  all  the  presents  I  have  made  him  don't  assist  me  in 
getting  out  of  him  a  few  pounds  for  a  piece  of  work  that  has  cost  me 
so  much  trouble.  I  asked  him  nothing  for  the  Benefit  Night,  because 
that  Night  I  considered  the  Theatre  Mrs.  Stirling's.  The  other  nights 
he  shall  pay,  by  God. 

And  I  will  trouble  you,  if  necessary,  to  communicate  to  Mrs.  S. 
my  feelings  on  this  systematic  robbery  practised  upon  the  class  I 
represent,  and  upon  myself  in  particular,  and  I  venture  to  hope  in 
a  clear  case  like  this  I  shall  not  have  her  to  fight  against  as  well  as 
Mr.  G. 

The  Newcastle  case  was  different.  Davis  produced  a  letter  written 
by  Mrs.  S.  ;  the  sentence  he  relied  on  was  not  so  intended  by  her, 
but  it  bore  that  signification,  and  I  had  the  pleasure  in  waiving  all 

1  N.B. — A  notorious  lie, 


154     THE   STAGE  LIFE   OF  MRS.   STIRLING 

claim — as  an  Author — of  showing  him  that  it  was  done  out  (of) 
deference  to  a  sentence  that  had  fallen  from  her  pen — but  here  there 
is  no  evasion  or  reason.  It  is  simply  the  old  story — all  the  lower 
orders  of  intellect,  the  actors,  the  fiddlers,  the  carpenters,  the  money- 
takers  are  to  be  paid  for  their  feats,  but  the  real  man  of  mind,  the 
creator  of  that  which  alone  keeps  these  heroes  and  heroines  from 
sinking  gradually  out  of  all  public  estimation — is  not  to  be  re- 
munerated for  his  hard  toil — nous  verrons. 

These  fools  run  in  their  groove  like  moles,  till  they  fancy  they 
are  below  the  notice  of  the  law,  and  their  tricks  without  remedy  in 
this  world.  Secure  of  being  damned,  they  assume  too  readily  that 
they  are  not  to  be  kicked. 

Now,  I  have  carefully  studied  the  Act  for  the  protection  of  Liter- 
ary Property  in  these  Islands,  an  Act  framed  against  rogues,  as 
appears  on  the  face  of  it,  and  I  will  venture  to  attack  Sam  Glover 
with  its  penalties,  if  he  does  not  come  to  book.  Meantime  oblige 
me  by  informing  Mrs.  Stirling  that  to  this  Man  henceforth,  until 
further  notice,  the  price  of  any  play  of  mine  is  40s.  per  representation. 
He  has  a  similar  warning  from  me  until  my  just  claims  are  satisfied. 

Christie  Johnstone  goes  on  but  slowly.  I  corrected  this  day  proof 
sheets  up  to  p.  240.1  I  think  there  are  100  pages  more  to  come, 
so  I  fear  it  will  be  no  fatter  a  vol.  than  Peg  Woff. 

I  dare  say  I  shall  send  Mrs.  Stirling  a  copy — and  you  must  read 
hers  :  it  will  only  take  you  an  hour  and  a  half. 

It  wants  juice,  to  my  fancy — is  good  fruit,  perhaps,  but  not 
ripened. 

My  two  vols.  will  be  a  much  heavier  blow — at  least  I  think  so — 
but  Lord,  if  you  knew  the  trouble  and  bother  of  writing  a  solid  work 
upon  my  present  plan,  i.e.  verifying  everything  I  say  or  describe  ! 
To  write  my  two  vols.  I  must  read  twenty,  and  hunt  up  men  as  well 
as  books. 

C.  J.  concludes  with  a  panegyric  on  Marriage  (as  I  understand  it). 
I  describe  it  as  Moses  might  the  promised  land,  all  the  brighter  because 
I  have  no  hope  of  ever  tasting  it.  God's  will  be  done  I  My  head 
aches — because  I  have  allowed  this  lump  of  dirt,  Glover,  to  put  me 
in  a  passion ;  so  I  must  leave  off  with  apologies  for  an  egotistical 
letter,  and  am 

Yours  sincerely, 

CHARLES  READE, 


That  Mrs.  Stirling  had,  in  part,  brought  these  troubles 
upon  herself  is  undoubtedly  true  ;  yet  it  is  difficult  to  blame 
her.  Launched  from  earliest  youth,  without  knowledge  or 
experience,  without  friends,  or  wise  counsel,  or  guidance, 

1  Christie  Johnatone  was  published  in  the  autumn  or  early  winter  of 
1853. 


"  PEG  WOFFINGTON  "  155 

into  an  arduous,  seductive,  and  dangerous  profession,  with 
all  the  added  temptations  that  accompany  unusual  personal 
attractions — graces  imposed,  moreover,  upon  an  impulsive 
and  ardent  temperament — who  can  wonder  that  she  made 
many  and  irreparable  mistakes?  A  quarter  of  a  century 
had  already  gone  towards  the  perfecting  of  her  dramatic 
art ;  a  yet  longer  span  of  years  must  be  lived,  before  she 
could  acquire  the  rudiments  of  a  not  less  difficult  art — 
practical  wisdom  in  the  guidance  of  her  life.  No  period  of 
her  career  had  brought  her  greater  personal  triumphs,  as  an 
actress,  than  had  these  of  the  early  fifties ;  nor  had  any  years 
brought  her,  at  the  same  time,  graver  problems,  difficulties, 
and  disillusionments. 


CHAPTER    XIII 

WITH    ROBSON    AT    THE    OLYMPIC 

1853-61 

Mrs.  Stirling  resumes,  under  Wigan  at  the  Olympic — "  Plot  and  Passion  " 
— Robson's  great  success — The  quality  of  his  acting — "  Most  singular 
dramatic  genius  of  the  day" — Mrs.  Stirling  breaks  down,  and 'con- 
templates retirement — Her  return  to  the  Olympic — "  Lady  Teazle  " 
— "  Anne  Carew  "  in  "A  Sheep  in  Wolf's  Clothing  " — "  Leading 
Strings,"  another  success — More  illness,  and  provincial  tours — 
"  The  Red  Vial  " — Robson's  comparative  failure — Mrs.  Stirling 
as  "  Mrs.  Bergmann  " — The  climax  of  her  tragic  work — Popularity 
of  Olympic  comedies,  and  high  reputation  of  the  company — Mrs. 
Stirling's  versatility — Her  melancholy  ;  and  verses  thereon — First 
appearances  of  Miss  Fanny  Stirling — "  The  Enchanted  Island  " — 
Mother  and  daughter  play  together  in  "  A  Duke  in  Difficulties  " — 
Failure  of  Taylor's  comedy — Miss  Fanny  Stirling  leaves  the  stage — 
Mrs.  Stirling  temporarily  retires. 

NOT  until  October,  as  we  have  seen,  did  London  audiences 
have  another  opportunity  to  applaud  their  favourite,  when, 
on  the  17th,  she  reopened  at  the  Olympic,  under  Alfred 
Wigan,  who  had  succeeded  Farren  in  the  management. 
The  curtain-raiser  was  an  extravaganza  by  Planche — "The 
Camp  at  the  Olympic " — in  which  Mrs.  Stirling  played 
"  Comedy,  still  old  fashioned  but  opposing  a  flippant  grace 
to  the  stateliness  of  Tragedy,  in  the  person  of  Mrs. 
Chatterley,"  a  then  retired  actress,  of  some  repute  in  her 
day.  This  light  prelude  was  a  set-off  to  the  once  well- 
known  drama,  "  Plot  and  Passion,"  x  the  staple  fare  of  the 
evening. 

To  the  modern  reader  it  is  poor  stuff,  from  the  French, 
as  usual,  cleverly  woven  and  contrived,  as  Taylor's  work 
always  is,  but  lacking  in  charm,  for  the  sufficient  reasons 
that  every  principal  character  in  it  is  either  a  fool,  or  a 
knave,  or  both,  and  that  the  element  of  intrigue  is  over- 

1  John  Lang,  who  collaborated  with  Taylor,  was  leader  of  the  Calcutta 
Bar. 

156 


WITH  ROBSON  AT  THE   OLYMPIC         157 

done.  Taylor,  with  memories  of  "  Adrienne  "  yet  linger- 
ing, had  intended  to  give  his  leading  lady  a  strong  part ; 
and,  as  the  impassioned,  heart-broken  gambler,  she  threw 
all  her  pathos  into  the  role  of  "  Marie."  But,  though  she 
did  her  utmost — "  What  a  favourite  she  is  !  "  commented 
G.  H.  Lewes — it  was  not  her  fault  that  the  feature  of  the 
evening  was  the  acting  of  Robson,1  in  the  serious  r61e  of 
"  Desmarets,"  underling  of  Fouche,  the  famous  Minister  of 
Police,  of  1810,  played  by  Emery. 

Robson  had  already  reached  celebrity  under  W.  Farren, 
Wigan's  predecessor  at  the  Olympic,  and,  in  "  Plot  and 
Passion,"  was  playing  for  the  first  time  under  Wigan's 
management.  Few  critics,  at  that  date,  were  quite  certain 
whether  this  actor's  true  bent  was  comedy  or  tragedy ; 
for  in  his  most  successful  parts — such  as  "  Daddy  Hard- 
acre,"  in  an  adaptation  of  Balzac's  "Eugenie  Grandet" — 
the  tragic  and  comic  elements  were  so  evenly  balanced  that 
none  knew  which  predominated,  and  only  the  most  acute 
observers  could  surmise  that  Robson's  peculiar  genius  was 
best  displayed  in  transition  from  one  to  the  other.  The 
farces  in  which  he  gained  greatest  success  were  those  that 
allowed  him  to  transmute  "  the  tragic  passion  of  terror 
into  its  droll  equivalent  fright,"  2  where  all  the  humour 
lay  in  the  contrast  between  the  intense  seriousness  of  his 
emotions,  and  the  ludicrous  circumstances  that  called  them 
forth.  Later  on,  when  Mrs.  Stirling's  pre-eminence  at  the 
Olympic  was  declining,  Robson  was  to  be  its  principal 
attraction. 

Contemporary  writers  often  refer  to  this  extraordinary 
comedian — "  the  most  singular  dramatic  genius  of  the 
day,"  as  Hollingshead  calls  him  3 — and  the  most  amazingly 
clever  trimmer  between  tragedy  and  farce  in  all  our 
theatrical  annals.4 

In  him  the  extremes  of  the  sublime  and  the  ridiculous  came  very 
near  meeting — only  that  his  acting  ever  kept  preponderatingly  sub- 

1  His  first  appearance  at  the  Olympic  was  in  "  Salvatore,"  1853. 

2  Saturday  Review.  8  Memoirs,  i.  127. 

4  My  mother's  recollection  of  him  is  :  "  Just  perfect  in  burlesque  ;  no 
one  else  at  all  like  him."  Robson  became  a  close  friend  of  Mrs.  Stirling's 
though  he  was  never  a  frequent  visitor  at  her  house,  as,  for  example,  was 
Leigh  Murray. 


158     THE  STAGE  LIFE  OF  MRS.   STIRLING 

lime,  and  that  even  the  loudest  burst  of  laughter  that  greeted  the 
wonderful  little  man's  comic  play  and  utterances  had  in  them,  may 
be  unconscious  to  actor  and  audience  alike,  a  subdued  undercurrent 
of  sobs  and  tears.1 

His  coming  tragedy  thus  cast  its  shadow  before.  Often 
nervous,  fidgety,  and  restless  upon  the  stage — and  always 
so  off  it — this  actor,  who  might  have  remained  long  at  the 
head  of  his  profession,  became  increasingly  intemperate, 
and  died  in  his  forty-fourth  year,  a  dipsomaniac.2 

Of  this  sad  consummation,  however,  there  was  no  sign 
when  he  made  what  was,  I  believe,  his  first  appearance 
with  Mrs.  Stirling  in  "  Plot  and  Passion,"  the  after-piece 
to  "  The  Camp  at  the  Olympic." 

Concerning  his  performance  the  critic  of  the  Sunday 
Times  wrote  8  : 

To  compare  his  acting  in  the  character  with  that  of  any  other 
actor  upon  the  English  stage,  would  give  no  idea  of  his  peculiarity ; 
he  is  an  actor  sui  generis,  and  must  be  seen  to  be  thoroughly  appre- 
ciated. His  power  of  facial  expression  is  something  marvellous, 
and  the  manner  in  which,  by  means  apparently  comic,  he  produces 
the  most  profound  tragic  passion,  is  perfectly  wonderful.  The  inten- 
sity of  his  emotion  when  he  declares  his  love  for  "  Mme.  de  Fontanges," 
in  the  second  act,  was  the  ne  plus  ultra — though  ludicrous,  it  was 
terribly  real  and  effective.4 

During  the  early  part  of  1854,  Mrs.  Stirling,  for  reasons 
of  health,  was  not  working  at  full  pressure ;  and  about 
the  middle  of  May,  she  broke  down  and  withdrew  from  the 
cast.  A  part  of  the  physical  trouble  was  rheumatism  of 
the  eyes,  for  which  she  was  bled,  cupped,  and  otherwise 
malpractised  upon,  after  the  surgical  fashion  of  that  day. 
She  spent  a  portion  of  her  enforced  holiday  at  Brighton, 
whence  Mrs.  Baylis  received  from  her  the  following 
letter: 

1  Toole's  Reminiscences,  Hatton,  p.  155. 

«  1864.  8  October  23,  1853. 

*  Sir  Squire  Bancroft  writes  :  "I  was  enthralled  by  an  actor  whom  1 
shall  never  forget — Frederick  Robson.  I  saw  him  often,  and  vividly  recall 
his  intensity  as  *  Pesmarets  '  in  *  Plot  and  Passion.'  .  .  .  The  power  of 
Robson  on  the  stage  was  contagious  like  a  fever,  and,  take  him  all  in  all, 
I  think  he  was  the  most  remarkable  actor  of  those  days,  and  perhaps  one 
of  the  most  remarkable  of  any  days."  The  Bancrofts,  p.  45. 


WITH  ROBSON  AT  THE  OLYMPIC        159 

BRIGHTON,  Wednesday. 

Ah  !  little  woman  !  little  woman  !  you  wouldn't  take  time  by 
the  "  fire  "  lock,  and  Saturday,  I  believe,  sees  me  on  my  road  to  the 
great  muddle  or  puddle,  or  whatever  you  like  to  call  it,  of  London, 
there  to  try  and  arrange  something  for  the  future — to  decide  if  I  act 
again,  and  so  on. 

I  am  sorry  you  have  not  been  with  us,  for  we  have  had  lovely 
weather,  and  my  Fan  yesterday  had  her  first  plunge  this  year  into 
the  open  sea. 

I  cannot  say  I  find  the  sight  of  my  eye  improved,  it  looks  a  little 
more  like  the  other,  and  wind  and  light  does  not  seem  to  affect  it, 
so  after  taking  the  opinion  of  some  good  oculist  it  will  soon  now  be 
decided  whether  I  am  to  risk  it  and  act  again. 

The  newspapers  put  me  into  such  a  rage  that  I  really  cannot 
command  myself — nothing  but  horrors  and  follies  and  wickednesses — 
I  really  believe  the  best  way  is  never  to  read  one.  I  shall  just  get 
to  town  too  late  for  all  the  gaieties  and  just  as  the  hot  weather  com- 
mences and  London  is  more  hateful  than  ever. 

I  got  a  letter  the  other  day  commencing  :  "  So  '  Clive  Newcome ' 1 
has  actually  married  that  pretty  simpleton,  *  Rosy  Mackenzie l — isn't 
it  abominable  ?  "  Really,  it  is  very  provoking  of  Thackeray  that 
he  will  make  his  heroes  and  heroines  marry  the  wrong  people  just 
as  they  do  in  real  life. 

From  this  it  will  be  seen  that  Mrs.  Stirling  was  con- 
templating retirement  from  the  stage.  The  doctors,  how- 
ever, must  have  decided  in  her  favour,  for  when  the 
Olympic,  after  closing  in  August,  was  reopened  on 
October  9,  Emery,  Vining,  and  Mrs.  Stirling  had  all  been 
re-engaged.  The  leading  lady,  when  the  time  came,  being 
still  too  unwell  to  appear,  her  parts  were  taken  by  Miss 
Fitzpatrick ;  and  Mrs.  Stirling  did  not  return  to  the  stage 
until  the  summer  of  1855.  It  is  probably  to  June,  of  that 
year,  that  the  next  letter  belongs. 

Saturday. 

Only  a  line,  my  dear  little  woman,  to  tell  you  I  have  just  signed 
an  engagement,  and  hope  to  go  to  work  this  day  fortnight.  It  isn't 
exactly  the  piece  I  should  have  chosen,  but  'tis  to  be  hoped  something 
better  will  come. 

Work  begins,  of  course,  before  the  actual  night  for  rehearsals, 
and  study  and  preparation  is  the  work,  and  that  begins  literally  to-day, 
for  I  am  going  to  write  my  own  part  out  directly.  This  will  knock 
my  trip  on  the  head,  but  that  must  come  by  and  by. 

1  The  Newcomes  was  published  during  that  year,  1854. 


160     THE   STAGE   LIFE   OF  MRS.   STIRLING 

I  am  sorry  to  have  lost  you  just  now,  when  you  might  have  helped 
me  with  this  very  part,  for  I  shall  have  to  drag  lines,  sentences  and 
ideas  from  all  sorts  of  sources,  and  put  them  into  this,  if  I  am  to  do 
anything  with  it.  This  isn't  a  letter,  dear,  only  a  line  to  tell  you 
I'm  going  into  harness  again,  and  a  trap  to  drag  a  letter  from  you. 
I  hope  you'll  enjoy  your  sea. 

Her  next  appearance  at  the  Olympic,  of  which  I  have 
any  record,  is  that  for  Mrs.  Wigan's  Benefit,  on  June  22, 
1855,  as  "  Lady  Teazle."  She  was  getting  rather  too  old 
for  the  part,1  but  brought  back  with  her,  nevertheless, 

all  her  accustomed  vivacity  and  finesse,  and  never  looked  better  than 
in  the  stately  dress  of  the  last  century.  .  .  .  The  point  of  the  dialogue 
was  duly  given  by  her  delivery,  and  that  is  no  small  praise  in  an  age 
when  the  art  of  wielding  the  language  of  polished  repartee  is  fast 
fading  away.  Emery,  as  "  Sir  Peter,"  and  the  others  scarcely  recog- 
nize the  subtleties  of  that  artificial  comedy  dialogue,  which  belong  to 
another  time,  but  which  lies  within  the  reach  of  Mrs.  Stirling's  quick 
discernment.2 

The  fact  is,  that  the  players,  as  a  company,  were  rather 
far  out  of  their  ordinary  line,  namely  drawing-room  comedy, 
and  domestic  drama,  varied  with  farce,  in  which  the 
Olympic  was  building  up  for  itself  the  reputation  of  being 
the  leading  London  house,  in  that  class  of  work. 

Over  Mrs.  Stirling's  performances  there  during  the  last 
half  of  the  year  1855,3  and  the  year  1856,  I  do  not  propose 
to  linger.  On  July  2,  1855,  she  played  in  "  Where  there's 
a  Will  there's  a  Way."  On  February  12,  1856,  as  "  Mrs. 
Metcalfe,"  she  helped  to  give  a  little  life  to  an  otherwise 
flat  comedy  by  G.  H.  Lewes,  disguised  as  "  Slingsby 
Lawrence  "  ;  and  on  May  26  she  took  up  again  the  part 
in  which  she  had  appeared  at  the  Lyceum  in  1847 — "  Mrs. 
Bracegirdle,"  "  The  Tragedy  Queen."  My  grandmother 
always  enjoyed  playing  actresses,  because  such  roles  gave 
her  more  opportunity  to  make  use  of  her  elocutionary  powers 
than  most  drawing-room  dramas  afforded.  Always  fond  of 
recitation,  she  just  revelled  in  the  tragedy  speeches,  and 

1  Born  July  29,   1813 — therefore  nearly  forty-two. 

2  The  Times,  June  23,  1855. 

8  On  September  1,    1855,   Bartholomew   Fair   was   proclaimed  for  the 
last  time. 


WITH  ROBSON  AT  THE   OLYMPIC         161 

it  was  her  delight  in  them,  no  doubt,  together  with  her 
need  for  more  rest,  that  turned  her  mind  little  by  little 
towards  an  alternative  occupation,  which,  while  suited  to 
her  taste  and  abilities,  would  tax  her  physique  less  than 
would  play-acting  upon  the  legitimate  stage. 

Two  more  roles,  during  1856,  I  have  noted—the  lead 
in  "  Wives  as  They  Were  and  Maids  as  They  Are,"  by 
Mrs.  Inchbald,  and  "  Miss  Dorrillon,"  with  Robson,  in 
44  A  Conjugal  Lesson."  Then,  on  February  19,  1857,  she 
was  seen  as  "  Anne  Carew,"  in  another  domestic  drama 
by  Tom  Taylor,  "  A  Sheep  in  Wolf's  Clothing,"1  which 
takes  us  to  Taunton,  after  Sedgemoor,  in  1685,  when 
Kirke's  Lambs  were  loose  about  the  West  Country,  and 
rebel  fruit,  of  King  Monmouth's  army,  dangled  from  the 
sign-boards  of  the  Somerset  Inns. 

One  would  naturally  suppose  that  a  play  upon  such  a 
theme  would  be  English  through  and  through  ;  and  that 
a  week  spent  at  the  "  White  Hart,"  Taunton,  with 
wanderings  about  the  vale  of  Sedgemoor,  were  the  inspira- 
tions that  set  Taylor  to  work.  Such,  however,  was  not 
the  method  of  our  dramatists  of  the  fifties.  At  the  head 
of  the  printed  play  we  read,  as  usual,  "  from  the  French." 
Taylor,  almost  wholly  deficient  in  natural  creative  power, 
had  done  no  more  than  adapt  to  his  purpose  Mme.  de 
Girardin's  "  Une  Femme  qui  D6teste  son  Mari." 

The  play,  nevertheless,  is  a  deft  piece  of  work,  and  with 
the  help  of  a  new  historical  setting,  and  broad  Somerset 
dialogue,  does  effectually  conceal  its  first  nationality  from 
all  those  to  whom  the  purposeful  coquetry  of  "  Anne  Carew  " 
does  not  suggest  a  French  origin.  Its  story  is  of  the 
simplest.  "  Anne  Carew "  has  concealed  her  husband, 
whom  people  suppose  to  have  fallen  at  Sedgemoor,  while 
fighting  upon  Monmouth's  side.  "  Colonel  Percy  Kirke " 
(Addison)  is  making  to  her  advances  that  she  pretends  to 
welcome.  "  Jasper  Carew  "  (Vining),  and  his  wife's  faithful 
duplicity,  come  of  course  to  light  at  last ;  but  the  sudden 
appearance  of  "  Lord  Churchill  "  puts  an  end  to  <c  Kirke's  " 
command,  before  he  has  had  time  to  revenge  himself ;  and 
the  curtain  falls  upon  the  reunited  pair,  to  the  jingle  of 

1  A  play  in  which  the  Kendals  later  on  made  a  great  success. 

11 


162     THE   STAGE  LIFE   OF  MRS.   STIRLING 

the  rhyming  tags,  without  which  Taylor  thought  no  comedy 
complete. 

Such  a  part,  with  a  play  within  a  play,  was  exactly 
suited  to  Mrs.  Stirling's  talent.  The  Times  l  critic  writes 
that  she, 

though  perhaps  hardly  realizing  all  that  was  expected  from  her,  in 
consequence  of  the  memory  of  her  many  successes  in  previous  parts 
of  the  kind,  still  endowed  the  character  with  that  vivid  force  of 
expression  that  told  strongly  upon  the  audience.  The  transitions, 
from  the  playful  assumptions  of  love  for  the  hated  destroyer  of  her 
friends,  to  the  earnest  devotion  that  she  exhibits  to  her  husband,  were 
marked  by  the  skilful  employment  of  those  talents  in  which  she  has 
yet  scarce  a  rival. 

On  March  4,  however,  when  the  play  was  yet  only  a 
fortnight  old,  Mrs.  Stirling,  seized  with  sudden  illness, 
was  compelled  to  resign  her  part  to  Mrs.  Alfred  Wigan, 
and — excepting  a  visit  to  Edinburgh  Theatre  Royal,  where 
Henry  Irving  was  acting,  and  an  appearance  during  August, 
in  a  farce,  "  The  Subterfuge,"  on  the  occasion  of  the 
reopening  of  the  theatre,  under  Robson  and  Emden's 
management — did  not,  I  think,  take  up  any  heavy  work, 
until  October,  when,  on  the  19th,  she  reappeared  in  a 
typical  Olympic  comedy  of  the  time,  "  Leading  Strings," 
by  A.  C.  Troughton,  from  "  Tou jours,"  the  last  but  one 
of  the  interminable  list  of  plays  to  the  credit  of  the 
French  dramatist,  Scribe. 

"  Mrs.  Leveson,"  a  widow,  played  by  Mrs.  Stirling, 
dotes  upon  her  son,  and  would  marry  him  to  her  niece 
"  Florry."  The  boy,  however,  has  conceived  a  passion 
for  the  proud,  selfish,  high-born  "  Edith,"  who  lives  with 
them.  Her  he  will  absolutely  possess — "  aut  '  Edith  '  aut 
nullus,"  as  Edmund  Kean  would  have  put  it.  The  shrewd, 
designing  mother,  knowing  well  her  boy's  character,  pre- 
tends to  give  way,  and  astutely  contrives  that  "  Frank " 
and  "  Edith  "  shall  be  bottled  up,  for  weeks  together,  at 
a  dull  old  country  house  in  the  North  of  England,  there  to 
feast  upon  one  another's  charms.  The  result,  of  course, 
is  surfeit,  followed,  in  due  time,  by  loathing  and  fast.  The 
lively  and  ingenuous  "  Florry "  is  then  introduced  at 

1  February  22,  1857. 


WITH  ROBSON  AT  THE  OLYMPIC         163 

the  critical  moment;  u Edith"  finds  solace  elsewhere; 
and  the  mother's  triumph,  and  her  son's  happiness,  are 
simultaneously  accomplished.  Simple  stuff,  this,  depending 
wholly  upon  interpretation  for  effect,  it  proved,  never- 
theless, to  be  one  of  the  most  successful  of  Mrs.  Stirling's 
long  list  of  characters. 

Her  natural  and  earnest  style  [says  the  critic  of  the  Era l]  gave 
to  the  portrait  of  the  watchful  and  contriving  mother  those  vivid 
colours  that  only  the  absolute  mistress  of  her  art  could  have  employed 
so  dexterously.  Her  "  Mrs.  Leveson "  will  be  fit  to  hang  on  the 
walls  of  memory  beside  those  other  pictures  that  belong  to  the  famous 
gallery  of  comedy  portraits  limned  so  cleverly  by  the  same  hand. 

Mrs.  Stirling,  as  the  mother,  exhibits  one  of  the  most  finished 
and  sustained  pieces  of  drawing-room  acting  that  has  been  seen  in 
London  for  some  years  ;  and,  from  one  end  to  the  other,  her  part 
is  excellent.8 

The  run  of  "  Leading  Strings,"  like  that  of  "  A  Sheep 
in  Wolf's  Clothing,"  was  cut  short — so  far  as  Mrs.  Stirling 
was  concerned — by  another  illness.  On  November  23 
she  broke  down  suddenly,  and  her  part  was  read  by  Miss 
Castleton.  From  that  time  forward  the  actress  felt  herself 
unequal  to  the  strain  of  long-sustained  theatrical  work, 
and  made  less  frequent  appearances  upon  the  stage.  She 
continued  to  tour,  at  intervals,  though  not  very  willingly. 
February  1858  finds  her  at  the  Theatre  Royal,  Glasgow, 
from  the  1st  to  the  6th;  at  the  Theatre  Royal,  Edin- 
burgh, from  the  8th  to  the  13th ;  and  back  at  Glasgow 
from  the  15th  to  the  20th,  where  she  played  with  Glover 
in  "  The  Jealous  Wife,"  "  A  Sheep  in  Wolf's  Clothing,"  and 
"  Subterfuge."  "  The  Tragedy  Queen  "  and  "  Masks  and 
Faces  "  were  also  included  in  the  repertoire  of  that  tour. 

From  one  of  these  towns,  probably,  was  written,  to 
Mrs.  Baylis,  a  letter  of  which  I  give  a  fragment  here.  It 
shows,  only  too  plainly,  that  the  long-drawn  dilemma 
between  duty  and  daughter  was  still  agitating  her  mind. 

Ah  !  my  child  !  you  think  me  free  to  fly  here  and  there  and  there  ! 
you  don't  see  all  the  different  strings  that  pull  me  here  and  there  ! 
and  the  chain  cable  that  holds  my  heart  tightly  in  one  place  while 
my  wretched  body  is  dragged  here  and  there,  to  toil  on  as  it  can  with- 
out it !  all  to  make  these  pounds,  shillings  and  pence  that  I  cannot 

1  October  25,  1857.  *  Saturday  Review,  October  31,  1857. 


164     THE   STAGE  LIFE   OF  MRS.   STIRLING 

enjoy  when  made.  I  have  a  dreadful  cold,  there  is  no  getting  warm 
through ;  here  I  sit  in  shawls  and  fur  shoes  over  my  boots,  and  yet 
shiver,  and  my  landlady  is  an  old  maid,  oh  !  so  cold  ! — it's  all  cold 
and  wretched  together.  I  write  and  tell  a  friend  of  mine  to  leave 
you  a  Scotch  paper  or  two  which  you  will  keep  for  me,  as  they  are 
to  go  in  the  London  Press.  It  must  have  been  a  Mrs.  Gillett,  I  fancy, 
you  met  at  my  house,  an  enthusiastic  little  woman,  like  yourself, 
who  has  the  happy  gift  of  words.  If  you  send  here  again  it  must 
not  be  after  Friday's  post,  as  there's  no  delivery  here  on  the  "  Sabbath  " 
— eh,  mon  !  oh  !  M  !  you  may  drink  and  light  and  murder,  be  a  beast 
in  any  way,  but  you  mustn't  have  your  letters  or  travel,  so  I  shall 
be  shut  up  here  Sunday,  but  off  on  Monday  before  the  post  comes. 
Hoping  to  see  you,  dear,  very  soon, 

Believe  me  yours  truly, 

F.  S. 

Not  consideration  of  health  only,  then,  was  the  cause 
for  her  gradual  withdrawal  from  the  stage.  The  first 
sentence  of  the  above  letter  supplies  a  reason  more  potent. 
Still,  however,  with  the  stubborn  determination  that  she 
could  always  summon  at  command,  Mrs.  Stirling  remained, 
for  the  time  being,  a  faithful  servant  of  the  Olympic 
management,  appearing,  on  April  19,  as  "Mrs.  Flower- 
dale,"  in  Oxenford's  comedy,  "A  Doubtful  Victory,"  and, 
during  the  autumn  of  the  same  year,  as  "  Mrs.  Bergmann," 
the  housekeeper,  in  a  gloomy  play  of  crime  and  lunacy, 
by  that  melodramatic  writer,  Wilkie  Collins. 

"  The  Red  Vial "  proved  commercially  a  failure ;  in 
part  because  it  was  utterly  unsuited  to  the  tastes  of  an 
Olympic  audience,  and  in  part  because  of  Robson's  com- 
parative weakness  in  a  purely  tragic  role — most  of  the 
critics  laying  the  bulk  of  the  blame  upon  him.  The  really 
interesting  point  of  the  production  was  the  conclusive 
proof  it  afforded  that,  of  the  two  comedians,  Robson  and 
Mrs.  Stirling,  upon  whom  the  fortunes  of  the  house  mainly 
depended,  the  actor  could  not,  or  did  not,  succeed  in 
tragedy,  while  the  actress  could,  and  did.  As  the  Saturday 
Review  put  it : 

If  Mr.  Robson l  had  felt  a  real  sympathy  with  the  half-shrewd  idiot 
entrusted  to  his  talent,  he  might  have  rendered  him  a  conspicuous 

1  The  following  interesting  passage  concerning  Robson,  and  his  work 
in  this  play,  is  from  Hollingshead's  My  Lifetime,  i.  127,  128. 

" .  .  .  '  The  Red  Vial  *  was  a  decided  failure,  and  it  was  the  fashion 


WITH  ROBSON  AT  THE   OLYMPIC         165 

and  commanding  figure  amid  the  general  dullness,  as  indeed  the 
murderous  housekeeper  was  made  by  Mrs.  Stirling  ! 

Her  "  Mrs.  Bergmann  "  was  generally  regarded  as  "  the 
most  brilliant  failure  of  the  day." 

Mrs.  Stirling,  in  the  manifestly  repulsive  part  of  "Mrs.  Bergmann," 
adopts  the  bold  expedient  of  idealizing  the  would-be  murderess  into 
a  sort  of  "  Lady  Macbeth,"  and  by  the  imposing  character  of  her 
attitudes,  and  the  force  of  her  by-play,  gives  a  poetical  aspect  to  the 
piece,  which  would  not  otherwise  have  belonged  to  it.1 

The  Daily  Telegraph  went  farther  yet  in  commendation, 
and  paid  full  tribute  to  the  actress's  "  noble  effort  "  to  save 
the  play  from  failure,  adding  further  that 

her  acting  was  such  as  cannot  fail  to  heighten  the  fame  she  has 
established,  great  though  it  be,  and  to  raise  her  in  the  estimation  of 
her  most  ardent  admirers.2 

There  is  little  doubt  that  in  "  The  Red  Vial "  3— poor 
though  the  play  was — Mrs.  Stirling  reached  the  climax  of 
her  serious  powers,  and  came  closer  to  high  tragedy  than 
she  had  done,  even  in  "  Adrienne  Lecouvreur."  Her 
performance  arouses  curiosity,  as  to  what  she  might  have 
accomplished  in  "Lady  Macbeth,"  had  the  opportunity  ever 
been  afforded  to  her,  in  the  days  of  her  dramatic  maturity. 

to  throw  the  blame  upon  Robson.  I  was  present  the  first  night  with  Mr. 
Serjeant  Ballantyne,  and  we  could  not  honestly  abuse  anything  but  the 
piece  :  nothing  could  have  saved  '  The  Red  Vial.'  Robson  died  a  few 
years  later  of  dipsomania.  He  was  a  little  nervous  man,  with  a  large  head 
and  a  small  body;  his  legs  and  feet  were  particularly  neat.  He  was  a 
bundle  of  nerves.  When  he  spoke  to  you  and  shook  hands,  they  were 
damp  with  perspiration ;  when  he  acted,  on  a  first  night,  he  was  sick  after 
nearly  every  scene.  No  one  knows  the  agony  of  the  stage,  except  those 
who  are  on  it.  His  tragedy  was  terrific  for  a  few  minutes,  and  his  lapses 
into  common-place  most  comic  and  startling.  His  style  was  his  own.  He 
made  his  first  hit  in  my  friend  Frank  Talfourd's  burlesque  of  *  Shylock.' 
Mme.  Ristori  has  left  on  record  her  astonishment  on  seeing  his  travesty 
of  'Medea' — her  own  'Medea.'  ...  He  was  one  of  the  most  humorous 
and  original  farce  actors — unlike  any  of  the  popular  low  comedians — and 
could  breathe  the  breath  of  eccentric  life  into  the  vulgarest  comic  song. 
His  nervousness  made  him  doubt  his  own  staying  powers." 

1  The  Times,  October  12,  1858. 

2  Blanchard,  present  on  the  first  night,  wrote  in  his  diary :    "  Mrs. 
Stirling  wonderfully  fine." 

3  "  The  Red  Vial  "  is  perhaps  a  forerunner  of  the  French  naturalistic 
play.      Zola,  one  of  the  founders  of  French  naturalism,  was  to  write  his 
first  successful  book,  TMrtse  Raquin,  in  1867.    L'Assommoir,  which  made 
his  fortune,  appeared  in  1878. 


166     THE  STAGE  LIFE  OF  MRS.   STIRLING 

Apart  from  the  attraction  of  two  strong  parts,  for 
Robson  and  the  leading  lady,  one  wonders  what  were  the 
managers' l  reasons  for  producing  such  a  play  as  "  The 
Red  Vial "  at  the  Olympic,  a  house  that,  after  the 
Princess's — where  Charles  Kean  was  putting  on  spectacular 
Shakespearean  revivals  with  considerable  success — was  ad- 
mittedly the  second  theatre  in  London,  and  a  fashionable 
resort  of  comedy-seeking  play-goers. 

For  these  ventures  in  domestic  comedy,  Wigan — and 
Robson,  with  Emden  who  succeeded  him — had  brought 
together  and  trained  a  company,  of  whom  few,  excepting 
Mrs.  Stirling,  had  any  claim  to  celebrity,  before  the  days 
of  Wigan's  management.  But  now,  by  the  autumn  of 
1858,  they  had  "  come  on "  so  fast,  and  were  so  well 
together,  that  no  theatre  in  London  could  rival  them  at 
this  class  of  work.  Mrs.  Stirling,  as  we  have  seen,  had 
reached,  at  the  Olympic,  a  degree  of  popularity  not  excelled 
at  any  period  of  her  career ;  Robson  had  made  himself 
the  leading  burlesque  actor  of  the  day ;  Addison,  in  such 
parts  as  the  old  butler  in  "  Leading  Strings,"  and  the 
East  Indian  fire-eater  in  "  Going  to  the  Bad " ;  and 
lastly  Vining,  in  character  sketches,  such  as  the  rough 
military  lover  of  "  A  Doubtful  Victory,"  and  as 
44  Jasper  Carew  "  in  Taylor's  "  after-Sedgemoor  "  play, 
had  brought  the  comedian's  art,  each  after  his  manner, 
to  a  high  degree  of  perfection,  and  the  house  into  great 
repute. 

On  September  24,  1859,  then,  the  little  Olympic,  still 
under  Robson  and  Emden,  reopened  for  the  autumn  season, 
with  a  new  version  of  de  Musset's  comedy,  4t  II  faut  qu'une 
Porte  soit  Ouverte  ou  Fermee,"  or  in  English  dress,  4t  A 
Morning  Call."  Mrs.  Stirling  did  well  in  it,  as  she  did 
also  in  the  plays  that  followed:  "The  Head  of  the 
Family  "  ;  a  revival  of  her  old  triumph,  4t  Cousin  Cherry  "  ; 
and  44  Nine  Points  of  the  Law,"  in  which  she  appeared 
before  the  Court,  at  Windsor  Castle,  on  January  31,  1860. 

A  popular  magazine,  The  Players,  published  during 
the  following  month 2  an  appreciative  article  commenting 

1  Robson  and  W.  S.  Emden,  as  joint  managers,  had  succeeded  Wigan. 
8  February  25,  1860. 


WITH  ROBSON  AT  THE   OLYMPIC         167 

upon  Mrs.  Stirling's  extraordinary  versatility.  Its  readers 
were  reminded  that 

it  is  by  no  means  uncommon  to  meet  with  persons  who,  remembering 
her  impersonations  of  "Juliet,"  "Cordelia,"  "Desdemona,12  etc., 
prefer  them  to  those  of  any  other  lady  upon  the  stage. 

Others  thought  her  best  in  domestic  drama,  while  some 
ranked  her  highest  in  the  lighter,  more  dainty,  French 
style  of  part.  Certainly,  as  proof  of  her  scope  and 
variety,  it  was  a  most  remarkable  fact  that  she  played  a 
far  greater  range  of  character  after  being  established  in 
public  favour,  as  a  leading  comedy  actress,  than  she  had 
ever  done  before.  How  many  other  comediennes  in 
theatrical  history,  for  example,  have  been  capable  of 
sending  every  young  lady  in  the  house  into  floods  of  tears 
over  sorrows  considered  obsolete  for  years — such  as  the 
griefs  of  "  Clarissa  Harlowe  "  ? 

Yet,  all  the  while,  beneath  the  merriment  of  her  lightest 
work,  the  brooding  melancholy  was  there,  undreamed  of, 
doubtless,  by  the  many,  but  discerned,  or  suspected,  by 
the  more  penetrating  of  her  sympathizers.  One  such, 
perhaps,  was  the  writer  of  the  following  lines,  which  aroused 
comment,  at  this  time,  by  their  association  of  the  pale- 
dark  companion,  Melancholy,  with  the  bright  and  cheery 
creator  of  "Peg  Woffington." 

With  eyes  upraised  and  ringlets  curling, 

Pale  Melancholy  (Mrs.  Stirling) 

Comes  from  behind  the  prompter's  seat 

Her  lamentations  to  repeat ; 

And  while  she  pours  her  pensive  cries 

On  all  the  wings  and  flats  around 

There  is  an  echo  in  the  flies, 

That  seems  to  mock  the  mournful  sound. 

Through  box  and  pit  the  plaintive  accents  stole; 

Hung  o'er  the  orchestra  with  fond  delay  ; 

Through  all  the  house  a  calm  diffusing — 

The  sounds  not  e'en  the  gallery  losing — 

Till  in  the  slips  they  die  away. 

That  Mrs.  Stirling's  devotion  to  her  art  was  becoming, 
to  some  extent,  vicarious,  all  theatre-goers  were  now  to 
know,  when  her  daughter  Fanny — the  "  Little  Fan  "  of  the 


168     THE  STAGE  LIFE  OF  MRS.  STIRLING 

letters  to  Mrs.  Baylis — then  in  her  nineteenth  year,  made 
her  first  appearance  upon  the  West-End  stage.1 

The  occasion  was  at  Drury  Lane  Theatre,  on  July  25, 
1860,  at  a  benefit  arranged  for  the  family  of  R.  B.  Brough, 
who  had  died  not  long  before.  Actors  from  three  different 
theatres  gave  their  services  that  night,  and  G.  A.  Sala  spoke 
an  address,  specially  written  by  himself.  These  prelimi- 
naries took  up  so  much  time  that  it  was  near  midnight 
before  the  most  important  item  of  the  programme  came 
on,  namely,  "  The  Enchanted  Island,"  a  burlesque  of 
Shakespeare's  "Tempest,"  written  by  Robert  Brough,  in 
collaboration  with  his  brother  and  other  dramatists. 

Before  the  curtain  a  prologue,  written  by  Shirley 
Brookes,  for  the  occasion,  was  spoken  by  Mrs.  Stirling. 
Then  followed  the  burlesque,  played  mainly  by  amateurs,2 
many  of  whom  were  members  of  the  Savage  Club.  Miss 
Ellen  Terry's  elder  sister,  Kate  Terry — described  by  Charles 
Reade  as  the  meekest,  tenderest,  and  most  intelligent 
actress  of  her  day — was  "Ariel  "  ;  and  Fanny  Stirling,  the 
younger,  made  her  d6but  as  "  Miranda." 

The  appearance  of  Miss  Fanny  Stirling  as  "  Miranda "  fully 
answered  the  most  sanguine  expectations.  Endowed  with  remark- 
able personal  attractions,  the  young  lady  acts  and  sings  with  native 
vivacity  and  spirit,  accompanied  by  an  amount  of  grace  and  self- 
possession  that  could  only  be  acquired  through  careful  training.  The 
acting  of  the  amateurs  may  be  recorded  as  exceedingly  creditable, 
but  there  is  real  importance  in  the  accession  to  the  stage  of  so  promising 
a  young  actress  as  Fanny  Stirling.3 

On  Monday,  January  7,  1861,  Miss  Fanny  Stirling 
played  again  at  Drury  Lane,  in  her  first  important  part, 
"  Miss  Vandeleur,"  in  Falconer's  comedy,  "  Does  He  Love 
Me?"  a  performance  concerning  which  the  Athenceum  critic 
wrote : 

Miss  Stirling  has  great  natural  powers,  and  merely  requires  culti- 
vation in  the  art  which  she  has  chosen  to  realize  a  decided  success. 

1  She  had  begun  by  "  walking  on,"  dressed  in  a  scarlet  cloak,  in  a  play 
with  the  Wigans  about  three  years  before. 

2  "  Ferdinand,"  Miss  Woolgar  (Mrs.  Alfred  Mellon)  ;    "  Trinculo,"  John 
Hollingshead  ;  "  Stephano,"    George    Cruickshank  ;   "  Caliban,"  Mr.  Frank 
Talfourd.     "  Miranda  "  was  described  on  the  play-bill  as    "  Prospero's  pet 
and  Ferdinand's  passion  " — which  gives  a  clue  to  the  crudity  of  the  text. 

8  The  Times,  July  26,  1860. 


WITH  ROBSON  AT  THE   OLYMPIC         169 

Her  portraiture  of  the  heroine  was  exceedingly  natural,  full  of  girlish 
impulse,  and  occasionally  revealing  extraordinary  powers  of  fascina- 
tion. In  person  and  style  she  much  resembles  her  mother,  and  in 
time  will  probably  become  as  attractive  an  actress. 

All  this  was  well  enough  for  a  beginning ;  and  from 
that  time  onward,  until  her  second  de*but — if  I  may  call 
it  so — the  daughter  appeared,  with  a  fair  measure  of  suc- 
cess, at  various  West-End  theatres,  in  several  plays — 
among  which  was  "  She  Stoops  to  Conquer  " — before  her 
first  appearance  in  a  full-dress  comedy,  with  her  mother 
also  in  the  cast. 

The  date  was  March  6,  1861,1  the  play,  at  the  Hay- 
market,  "  A  Duke  in  Difficulties,"  specially  written  by 
Tom  Taylor  for  the  Stirlings,  from  a  tale  published  some 
years  before  in  Blackwood,  entitled,  "  A  Duke  in  a 
Dilemma."  Its  original  source  was,  I  believe,  a  German 
novel,  and  one  rather  regrets  that  the  story  ever  left 
Germany,  since  its  morals  were  doubtful,  and  its  interest 
but  small.  Briefly  the  tale  is  this : 

A  German  princeling,  short  of  money,  receives  at  his 
court  a  number  of  French  actors,  for  whom  he  has  made 
no  provision.  The  French  manager,  an  alert  individual, 
proposes  that  they  shall  all  become  courtiers,  and  so  enable 
the  princeling  fittingly  to  receive  a  neighbouring  prince, 
whose  wealthy  sister  he  hopes  to  marry.  Ainsi  dit,  ainsi  fait  ! 
The  duke  jumps  at  the  idea,  appoints  the  manager  his 
prime  minister  pro  tern.,  and  hands  portfolios  to  the 
remainder  of  the  travelling  company.  Ultimately  the 
duke  marries  the  princess,  who,  of  course,  restores  his 
shattered  finances,  while  the  actors — their  identities  always 
undiscovered — are  despatched  upon  foreign  missions,  so 
as  to  allow  the  real  courtiers  to  leave  the  state  prison,  in 
which  they  had  been  languishing,  and  return  to  their  normal 
inactivities.  The  visiting  prince,  meanwhile,  falls  in  love 
with  one  of  the  actresses,  "  Colombe "  (Miss  Fanny 
Stirling)  whose  actress-mother  (Mrs.  Stirling)  has  to  guard 
her  daughter  as  best  she  may. 

1  Sir  Squire  Bancroft  has  told  me  that  in  this  same  year,  1861,  he  ran 
away  from  home,  and  went  on  the  stage — in  his  twentieth  year,  I  think. 
He  began  at  the  Theatre  Royal,  Birmingham. 


170     THE  STAGE  LIFE  OF  MRS.  STIRLING 

Such  a  plot,  well  handled,  might  have  made  a  good 
comedy,  and  should  have  afforded  excellent  opportunities 
for  the  two  ladies  principally  concerned.  Unfortunately, 
it  was  badly  written.  Taylor,  for  want  of  time,  or  want 
of  care,  bungled  the  thing ;  and  so  overloaded  his  second 
and  third  acts  with  irrelevant  dialogue,  that  the  comedy 
became  tedious  and  wearisome,  despite  the  interest  aroused 
by,  and  the  pointed  allusions  in  the  text  to,  the  first — 
and  the  last — appearance  of  the  Stirlings  together.  The 
reception,  by  press  and  public  alike,  was,  on  the  whole, 
unfavourable,  notwithstanding  the  special  circumstances, 
and  the  strength  of  the  cast,  which  included  Howe,  Buck- 
stone,  Compton,  Rogers,  and  Mrs.  Wilkins. 

The  mother  [wrote  the  critic  of  The  Times] l  is  represented  with  great 
feeling  by  Mrs.  Stirling  .  .  .  and  the  final  speeches  which  she  utters 
when  she  leads  her  daughter  to  the  foot-lamps  evidently  refer  to  the 
recent  de"but  of  Miss  Fanny  Stirling,  and  were  understood  in  that 
sense  by  the  audience,  who  applauded  them  with  enthusiasm. 

The  Era  also  realized  the  significance  of  the  occasion  : 

It  was  impossible  not  to  feel  the  full  force  of  the  earnestness  of 
expression  with  which  Mrs.  Stirling,  as  the  experienced  actress, 
"  Joconde,"  depicted  the  perils  of  life  to  the  young  actress,  "  Colombe," 
her  daughter  ;  and  the  anxiety  for  her  future  welfare,  displayed  with 
all  that  depth  of  emotional  feeling  that  we  know,  in  this  instance, 
was  not  the  mere  proof  of  the  artist's  skill,  was  thoroughly  appre- 
ciated by  the  audience,  who  gladly  bestowed  encouraging  plaudits 
as  often  as  they  were  invited,  and,  truth  to  say,  they  were  invited 
pretty  frequently.  Miss  Fanny  Stirling  was  seen  to  more  advantage 
in  this  part  than  in  any  she  has  previously  undertaken  .  .  .  still, 
notwithstanding  that  one  of  Mr.  Tom  Taylor's  usual  rhymed  tags 
brought  the  curtain  down  to  applause,  elicited  by  the  pointed  utter- 
ance of  a  strong  appeal  which  Mrs.  Stirling  made  on  behalf  of  her 
daughter,  we  must  doubt  if  the  piece  has  sufficient  vitality  to  ensure 
it  long  life. 

It  certainly  had  not.  The  production  was  a  mistake ; 
and  my  mother  soon  after  left  the  stage,  with  which, 
despite  fine  physical  and  mental  qualifications,  she  had 
never,  I  think,  possessed  much  real  sympathy,  nor  shown 
any  deep  natural  instinct.  The  elder  lady  also,  at  this 

*  March  8,  1861. 


WITH  ROBSON   AT   THE   OLYMPIC         171 

time,  withdrew  temporarily  from  public  life,  at  the  height 
of  her  popularity,  and  with  a  reputation  equalled  by  few 
actresses  in  the  history  of  our  English  theatre.1 

In  The  Modern  Drama,  of  1862,  appeared  the  following 
lines  concerning  Mrs.  Stirling : 

No  living  actress  can  approach  her  in  comedy.  Unless  we  except 
a  somewhat  inelegant  walk,  she  combines  every  qualification  to  pro- 
duce a  matchless  embodiment  of  the  piquant,  the  high-bred,  the  witty 
heroines  of  the  old  drama.  Her  voice  is  soft  and  pleasing,  capable 
at  once  of  sweetness  and  acerbity  ;  her  face  is  essentially  womanly, 
tender,  gentle,  refined  ;  her  vigorous  understanding  knows  how  to 
give  point  to  the  wit  of  her  author,  pathos  to  his  melancholy,  emphasis 
to  his  satire,  and  illumination  to  his  obscurity. 

1  CHARACTERISTICS     OF     ACTRESSES,          CHARACTERISTICS  OF  ACTORS, 
from  Diprose's  The  Stage  and  from  the  same. 

The  Players. 

Helen  Faucit  is  ideal,  Samuel  Phelps  is  good  and  ready, 

Mrs.  Stirling  is  most  real  j  Old  John  Cooper  always  steady  ; 

Isabella  Glyn  is  strong,  Mr.  Kean,  an  artiste — Dutch  ! — 

Mrs.  Kean  is  seldom  wrong.  Anderson  is  never  such. 

Graceful,  fair  Miss  Vandenhoff,  Robson,  clever,  shrewd,  and  fine, 

Charlotte  Cushman  somewhat  gruff.  Wigan  in  French  parts  doth  shine  ; 

Mrs.  Keeley  always  clever,  Webster  is  so  good — and  yet 

Wee  Miss  Saunders,  live  for  ever  !  Walter  Lacy  betters  it. 

Edith  Heraud,  poet's  daughter,  Charles  Mathews,  rattling,  free, 

Amy  Sedgwick — Nature  taught  her.  Don,  Sir  William,  six  feet  three, 

Genius  smiled  on  Fanny  Kemble,  Many  good  and  hardly  great, 

Shall  we  genius'  faults  dissemble  ?  But,  in  a  transition  state, 

Rare  the  genius,  rare  and  great,  We  must  take  what  we  can  get, 

When  will  such  rise  again,  O  Fate  ?  And  past  greatness  must  forget. 

BETA. 


CHAPTER   XIV 

THE   ADELPHI,    AND    SOME    SPEECHES 

1861-68 

The  General  Theatrical,  and  Dramatic  and  Musical  Sick  Funds — Ladies 
relegated  to  galleries  at  these  dinners — Protests  from  Chairmen  and 
Revocation  of  the  Edict — Mrs.  Stirling's  first  reply  from  the  ladies 
— Her  gift  of  public  speaking — Northern  tour,  and  letters  thereon 
— "  A  lost  life " — The  demands  of  art  upon  the  artist — Con- 
templated withdrawal — Return  to  the  Adelphi  in  "Hen  and 
Chickens,"  1863 — Mrs.  Stirling  at  the  Royal  Mint — Her  speech  at 
Dramatic  and  Musical  Sick  Fund  Dinner  in  1864 — "  A  Woman  of 
Business,"  and  a  drink  play — Her  success  as  "  Marguerite "  in 
"  The  Workmen  of  Paris  " — Her  speech  on  St.  Valentine's  Day, 
1865—"  The  Huguenot  Captain  "— "  From  Grave  to  Gay  "—A  long 
withdrawal  in  1868. 

THE  theatrical  profession  is  certainly  a  precarious  one, 
and,  upon  the  whole,  underpaid.  Its  members,  moreover, 
being,  in  many  instances,  individually  more  generous  than 
provident,  cases  of  grievous  necessity  too  often  arise. 

In  1839  had  been  established  the  General  Theatrical 
Fund,  for  the  provision  of  pensions  to  old  actors ;  but,  as 
the  need  for  help  grew  with  the  development  of  the  theatre, 
there  was  founded,  in  1855,  a  kindred  organization,  for  the 
relief  of  sickness  and  distresses  among  the  profession.  It 
was  named,  somewhat  clumsily,  "  The  Dramatic,  Musical 
and  Equestrian  Sick  Fund  Association,"  of  which  the  first 
annual  dinner  was  held  on  April  9,  1857,  at  Willis's  Rooms,1 
in  St.  James's  Street. 

There  Tom  Taylor  presided  over  a  comparatively  small 
meeting,  at  which  no  ladies  were  present,  excepting  perhaps 
a  few  in  the  gallery,  as  tantalized  spectators  and  listeners, 
forbidden  either  to  speak  or  eat.  Woman's  emancipation 

1  Fanny  Kemble  (Frances  Anne  Kemble,  1809-93)  had  given  a  series 
of  Shakespearean  readings  there  in  1848  ;  Thackeray  also  lectured  there 
successfully,  after  moments  of  paralysing  nervousness,  as  related  by  Fanny 
Kemble  in  her  Records  of  Later  Life. 

172 


THE  ADELPHI,  AND   SOME   SPEECHES    173 

had  not  proceeded  far  in  those  days ;  nor  was  it,  I  believe, 
then  the  general  custom  to  admit  ladies  to  public  dinners, 
even  though — as  was  the  case  with  members  of  the 
theatrical  profession — those  ladies  were  publicly  exercising 
their  art,  and  earning  their  bread,  upon  the  same  boards 
with  the  men.  The  boards  were  open  to  the  ladies ;  the 
board  was  not. 

For  some  years  this  anomaly  was  permitted  to  continue. 
At  the  second  meeting,  with  Ben  Webster  in  the  chair ; 
at  the  third  under  Robert  Keeley ;  at  the  fourth  under 
Thackeray — on  Ash  Wednesday,  February  22,  1860 — the 
unfortunate  women  were  still  relegated  hungrily  to  the 
gallery,  though  their  healths  were  cursorily  proposed  at 
the  very  close  of  the  proceedings,  when  everybody  was 
tired,  and  those  who  had  not  already  left  were  preparing 
to  do  so. 

At  the  meetings  of  the  General  Theatrical  Fund,  the 
same  sort  of  thing  was  happening,  and  the  absence  of  the 
actresses  began  annually  to  be  commented  upon.  Tom 
Taylor,  presiding  at  their  dinner,  on  April  12,  1860,  in 
proposing  "  The  Ladies,"  at  11.30  p.m.,  said  :  "  I  do  so 
in  the  confident  hope  that  the  time  is  not  long  distant  when 
ladies  and  gentlemen  will  take  their  places  side  by  side, 
and  that  the  ladies  will  not  be  content  with  a  miserable 
toast  at  the  fag-end  of  the  evening." 

As  regards  the  elder,  and  more  conservative,  charity, 
however,  the  change  was  long  in  coming ;  and  at  their 
functions,  held  usually  at  the  Freemason's  Tavern,  Great 
Queen  Street,  the  fact  that  the  ladies  were  still  in  the  gallery, 
behind  the  men  and  a  grill,  became  the  subject  of  annual 
sentiment,  jest,  or  remonstrance,  according  to  the  tempera- 
ments of  the  speakers.  Alfred  Wigan,  on  April  16,  1862, 
"  heard  a  downy  rustle  that  could  not  have  proceeded  from 
coarse  masculine  broadcloth  and  leather,  but  which,  I  am 
convinced,  must  have  been  caused  by  those  lighter,  lovelier 
fabrics  that  veil  the  iron  cages  which,  in  the  present  day, 
contain  those  delicate  creatures  whom  some  of  us  have 
the  happiness  to  call  ours." 

Dickens,  at  the  next  dinner,  found  himself  in  a  tanta- 
lizing position.  "  I  always  want  to  look  this  way  (facing 


174     THE   STAGE  LIFE  OF  MRS.   STIRLING 

the  ladies)  and  I  am  obliged  to  look  this  (facing  the  gentlemen). 
Also  I  never  have  so  painful  a  sense  that  my  hair  is  going 
a  little  behind."  The  Lord  Mayor  of  London,  presiding 
in  1866,  complains,  for  the  same  reason,  of  a  stiff  neck ; 
and  Dion  Boucicault,  in  1867,  affirms  publicly,  that  "  this 
is  the  first  time  that  ever  he  turned  his  back  upon  a  lady." 
The  younger  Institution,  meanwhile — The  Dramatic  Sick 
Fund — had  set  their  house  in  order,  long  before.  At  their 
dinner  on  Ash  Wednesday,  March  5,  1862,  under  the  presi- 
dency of  Sir  Charles  Taylor,  ladies  were  admitted,  for  the 
first  time,  on  equal  terms  with  the  men  ;  and  Mrs.  Stirling, 
accompanied  by  Miss  Fanny  Stirling,  came  down  from  the 
gallery  to  the  dining  table,  and  responded  to  the  toast  of 
"  The  Ladies." 


Sir  Charles  Taylor,  Ladies  and  Gentlemen, — I  have  presided — 
how  long  ago  I  don't  perhaps  care  to  remember — as  Mrs.  Fitz-Smythe 
over  a  Ladies'  Club,1  but  I  am  now  called  upon  to  perform  a  still  more 
original  part,  that  of  spokeswoman  for  the  ladies  present,  and  actually 
dining  at  a  public  dinner.  I  think  the  Dramatic  Association  deserves 
credit  for  this  innovation,  which  allows  us  to  be  comfortably  seated 
at  this  table,  instead  of  being  ranged  drearily  up  in  a  gallery,  like  so 
many  cherubim  sitting  aloft,  keeping  watch  over  the  knives  and  forks 
of  poor  Jack.  (Laughter.)  In  the  name  of  the  ladies  present  I 
beg  to  thank  you  for  this  change  in  the  order  of  your  dining.  I  do 
not  think  that  the  presence  of  the  petticoats — however,  perhaps,  in 
their  present  form,  they  may  a  little  cripple  the  legs  of  the  gentlemen 
— need  cripple  their  eloquence  nor  check  their  joviality,  except  perhaps 
at  those  points  where  it  were  none  the  worse  for  being  checked. 

But  for  other  and  graver  reasons  I  am  both  proud  and  happy  in 
acknowledging  the  toast  on  behalf  of  my  professional  sisters.  If 
the  men  find  the  pathway  of  theatrical  art  a  rugged  and  difficult  one, 
think  what  it  must  be,  or  rather,  I  should  say,  what  it  is,  for  the 
women  !  (Hear,  hear.)  If  you,  with  your  thews  and  sinews,  born 
to  buffet  the  world  and  fight  your  way,  often  have  need  of  a  helping 
hand  o'er  this  rugged  bit  of  road,  and  are  still  apt  to  stumble  and 
founder,  think  what  it  must  be  for  young,  weak,  inexperienced  and 
too  often  unfriended  and  unprotected  woman  !  (Cheers.)  Oh  !  what 
heart-sickening  disappointment,  what  pinching  need,  what  terrible 
temptations  might  perhaps  be  averted  by  a  kind  hand,  with  just  a 
little  money  in  it,  held  out  to  them  at  the  critical  moment !  (Cheers.) 

And  if  I  turn  from  the  difficulties  which  now  and  then  beset  the 

1  March  20,  1840,  at  Olympic  "  The  Ladies'  Club,"  by  Mark  Lemon,  See 
ante,  p.  16. 


THE   ADELPHI,  AND   SOME   SPEECHES     175 

path  of  health,  and  strength,  and  youth,  to  the  more  dreary  priva- 
tions which  are  so  often  the  lot  of  age  and  sickness,  in  a  calling  so 
precarious  as  ours,  oh,  what  sad  reason  has  the  poor  old  worn-out 
actress  to  bless  such  a  Society  as  this,  which  provides  for  her  sick- 
bed those  comforts  which  she  is  unable  to  provide  for  herself,  and — 
when  all  other  offices  of  friendship,  save  the  last,  are  superfluous — 
soothes  her  death-bed  pillow,  and  saves  her  from  a  pauper's  grave. 
(Hear,  hear.) 

You  will  forgive  me,  I  hope,  for  intruding  such  sad  words  on  this 
occasion,  but  there  appear  special  reasons  why  the  women  in  our 
profession  should  take  an  interest  in  this  Charity,  and  it  seemed  to 
me  that  in  acknowledging  this  toast  they  might  not  be  altogether 
out  of  place.  In  the  name  of  all  the  ladies,  I  beg  to  return  you  our 
most  grateful  thanks  for  the  honour  you  have  done  us,  and  allow  me 
in  return  to  drink  all  your  healths.  (Loud  applause.) 


Whether  Mrs.  Stirling  was  making  here  her  d6but  as 
an  after-dinner  speaker,  or  whether  she  possessed  previous 
experience,  I  do  not  know,  but  the  lofty  tone  of  the  speech, 
its  ease,  pathos,  eloquence,  and  no  doubt,  the  grace,  truth, 
and  technical  excellence  of  its  delivery,  made  this  first 
effort  a  complete  success.  From  that  time  forth,  until 
1880,  with  only  occasional  absences,  Mrs.  Stirling  either 
responded  for  the  ladies  at  these  functions,  or  took  charge 
of  the  toast  of  the  evening.  Within  a  few  years  she  had 
established  herself  as  the  leading  speaker  for  the  Fund, 
on  behalf  of  which  she  must  have  collected,  during  those 
two  decades,  several  thousands  of  pounds. 

This  faculty  of  public  speaking  was  only  another  example 
of  Mrs.  Stirling's  quite  unusual  versatility.  Actors  and 
actresses,  in  general,  do  not  make  very  facile  orators.  In 
her  own  words,1  they  "  generally  draw  upon  the  author 
for  speech  currency,"  and  so  find  themselves  somewhat 
at  a  loss,  when  thrown  back  upon  their  own  inventiveness. 
Not  so  with  this  lady.  Her  roving  eye,  swift  intelligence, 
and  wide  human  sympathies  supplied  her  readily  with  all 
necessary  material.  Her  method  of  preparing  a  speech — 
as  may  be  seen  by  a  glance  at  the  back  numbers  of 
the  Era,  in  addition  to  those  in  the  text — was  to  take 
sundry  topics  of  the  time — a  political  event,  a  cause  cttibre, 
a  social  function,  or  whatever  else  might  serve  her  turn — 

i  February  10,  1864. 


176     THE  STAGE  LIFE   OF  MRS.   STIRLING 

to  extract  from  them  analogies,  verbal  and  other,  with  the 
cause  she  was  pleading,  and  so  adroitly  to  shape  the 
subject  to  her  ultimate  purpose — the  acquisition  of  money 
for  the  fund. 

To  the  accomplishment  of  this  end  she  brought  all  her 
feminine  art,  and  woman's  artifice.  Rich  humour,  and 
tender  pathos ;  subtle  mutinerie,  and  easy  grace ;  worldly 
knowledge,  and  simple  truth ;  personal  fascination,  and 
acquired  power,  were  all  in  turn  laid  under  contribution, 
and  used  with  the  trained  skill  that  had  already  raised  her 
so  high  in  her  profession.  When  reading  her  best  speeches, 
one  feels  instinctively  that  she  possessed,  on  the  platform 
as  on  the  stage,  the  essential  and  incommunicable  faculty 
of  open-heartedness,  which  alone  can  put  a  speaker  at  once 
upon  good  terms  with  an  audience,  and  bring  them  im- 
mediately into  mutual  confidence. 

The  chief  fault  of  her  speeches,  it  seems,  was  her  common 
failure  to  make  enough  use  of  incidents  that  had  occurred 
during  the  evening,  thus  conveying,  to  the  more  thoughtful 
hearers,  the  impression  that  the  discourse  was  either  learned 
by  heart,  or  at  least  fully  prepared,  before  the  speaker  sat 
down  to  dine.  We  know,  of  course,  that  almost  every 
after-dinner  speech  is  so  prepared ;  but,  by  the  exercise  of 
a  little  contrivance,  that  fact  can  be  screened,  if  not  con- 
cealed, from  all  but  the  acutest  hearers. 

At  the  dinner  of  February  18,  1863,  over  which  G.  A. 
Sala  presided,  Mrs.  Stirling  was  not  present,  she  being 
then  busy  with  preparations  for  a  northern  tour,  which 
opened  at  the  Prince  of  Wales's,  Liverpool,  on  March  16, 
when  "  every  nook  and  cranny  of  the  theatre  was  crammed 
by  legions  of  her  loyal  and  admiring  subjects,"  come  to 
see  her  play  during  the  fortnight  of  her  engagement,  in 
"Masks  and  Faces,"  "Nine  Points  of  the  Law,"  "The 
Tragedy  Queen,"  and  "  The  Ladies'  Battle." 

There  all  went  well ;  but  when  she  opened  at  the  Queen's, 
Edinburgh,  on  April  13,  a  different  tale  had  to  be  told. 
The  boxes  were  almost  vacant,  and  though  there  was  a 
fair  gathering  in  pit  and  gallery,  the  house,  as  a  whole, 
was  only  half  full.  A  similarly  cool  reception  had  recently 
been  accorded  to  the  Wigans  and  Charles  Mathews.  During 


THE  ADELPHI,  AND  SOME  SPEECHES  177 

this  visit  Mrs.  Stirling  wrote  to  Mrs.  Baylis,  on  or  about 
April  16,  1863 : 

38,  ALBANY  STREET, 

EDINBURGH. 

MY  DEAR  MRS.  BAYLIS, 

I  shall  feel  ever  so  many  years  younger  to  be  talking  and  writing 
to  you  again,  only  mind,  if  I  bestow  my  tediousness  upon  you,  you, 
who  have  more  and  better  things  to  do,  are  not  bound  to  answer. 

What  would  you  suffer  if  you  saw  the  theatre  here  !  I  have  just 
come  from  Liverpool,  where  all  was  a  sort  of  triumph — house  packed 
nightly — manager  a  liberal,  practical  man — and  I  come  to  this  fine 
city,  find  a  large,  beautiful  theatre  perfectly  empty — manager  out 
of  repute,  deserted  by  actors  and  audience.  Poor  "  Peg "  !  In 
Liverpool  all  was  like  a  flash  of  lightning,  and  here — however,  I  just 
send  you  a  paper  or  two  to  let  you  see  I  am  not  exaggerating.  They 
prophesy  it  will  pick  up  !  Yes  !  just  as  I'm  going  they'll  be  beginning 
to  think  they'll  come  some  night.  It's  aggravating  here  in  this 
beautiful  place,  which  looks  just  now  bright  and  light,  like  a  contin- 
ental town,  and  where  people  should  be  to  match.  Thursday  week 
I  go  to  Glasgow — things  are  much  dirtier  and  darker,  but  'tis  to  be 
hoped  more  "  jolly  "  there. 

You  remember  the  Glovers  ?  You  know  that  Glover  died  ?  that 
the  Royal  has  since  been  burnt,1  reducing  poor  Mrs.  Glover's  money 
terribly  ?  Julia,  the  eldest  daughter,  married  wretchedly  (of  course), 
separation  and  quarrels  after  but  a  few  months.  I  don't  know  if 
I  sent  you  Liverpool  papers.  I  am  glad  you've  told  me  of  Mrs. 
Trench's  book,2  I  shall  get  it  in  Glasgow.  I  liked  one  or  two  extracts 
I  had  seen  from  it,  but  for  some  months  I've  been  kept  in  too  great 
a  state  of  irritation  and  distress  to  care  about  anything.  I  must 
begin  to  interest  myself  about  others,  and  throw  myself  thoro'ly 
into  my  work,  or  leave  it  altogether.  I  waver  as  to  which  is  best. 
I  look  back  and  see  what  a  lost  life  mine  has  been  !  how  if  I'd  thrown 
myself  into  my  art  as  I  ought  to  have  done,  how  it  would  have  repaid 
me  in  every  way.  There  ought  to  be  no  family — no  ties — no  any- 
thing but  a  sort  of  priesthood  of  art  or  to  it  (I  don't  know  which  is 
grammar)  and  then  it  repays  you.  This  is  all  twaddle  to  be  put  in 
the  fire  and  for  no  eye  but  your  own,  but  I  thought  you'd  like  a  line 
of  some  kind  from 

F.  S. 

1  Glover  died  in  1860.  The  Theatre  Royal,  Glasgow,  was  burned  before 
daybreak  on  January  31,  1863,  after  the  pantomime  "  Blue-Beard,"  when 
all  the  scenery,  wardrobes,  armoury,  and  musical  and  theatrical  libraries 
— one  of  the  largest  provincial  collections — was  destroyed.  The  building 
was  insured  for  £9,000,  and  effects  for  £3,000,  but  neither  amount  was 
sufficient  to  cover  the  loss.  When  the  above  letter  was  written  Mr.  Edmund 
Glover  was  lessee  of  the  Royal,  and  of  the  Prince's,  Glasgow. 

3  I  suppose,  Mary  Caroline  Trench,  author  of  A  Box  oj  Ointment  (1851) 
and  Little  Richard  (1861).  This  latter  may  be  the  book  referred  to. 

12 


178     THE  STAGE  LIFE  OF  MRS.   STIRLING 

This  pathetic  outpouring,  intended  only  for  the  eye  of 
an  intimate  friend — and  written,  no  doubt,  like  so  many 
others — partly  with  the  object  of  eliciting  a  sympathetic 
response — is  in  striking  contrast  with  Mrs.  Stirling's  naturally 
cheery  and  optimistic  humour,  as  revealed  in  her  comedy 
acting,  and  in  her  later  public  speeches.  The  cause  of  her 
"  irritation  and  distress,"  at  this  time,  is  to  be  found,  I 
think,  chiefly — as  indeed  she  almost  hints — in  the  impending 
marriage  of  her  daughter  to  the  writer's  father,  who,  though 
a  man  of  noble  character,  and  very  great  business 
ability,  was  not  artist  enough  to  possess  either  interest 
in,  or  sympathy  with,  the  theatre.  The  immediate  result 
of  the  marriage — a  very  happy  and  prosperous  one — was 
a  complete  and  permanent  breach  of  relations  between 
mother  and  daughter,  who,  after  the  separation,  met  no 
more,  nor  were  ever  reconciled. 

As  regards  Mrs.  Stirling's  lament  over  her  "  lost  life  " — 
the  life  that  she  might  have  found,  had  she  consecrated 
herself  wholly  to  her  art — what  can  one  say,  with  all  respect 
and  sympathy,  except  that  the  statement  was,  in  a  measure, 
true  ?  While  looking  over  this  record,  we  feel  convinced — 
and  we  may  haply  have  convinced  some  readers — that  it 
had  been  in  Mrs*  Stirling's  power  to  win  for  herself  that 
which  it  had  once  been  Charles  Reade's  aspiration  to  help 
her  to  win — a  place  upon  the  loftiest  pinnacles  of  histrionic 
fame.  But  Art  is  an  exacting  mistress.  Though  she 
require — as  the  sculptor,  M.  Bourdelle,  phrased  it  to  the 
writer — "  une  longue  initiation,"  she  demands  equally,  as 
sequel,  a  long  and  perfect  consecration.  Mrs.  Stirling  gave 
the  one,  and  reaped  a  corresponding  reward.  The  other 
she  was  too  much  the  woman,  too  much  the  mother, 
wholly  to  give :  and  it  was  not  until  too  late  that  she 
realized  the  futility  of  compromise,  and  the  imperative 
necessity  of  deliberate  choice  between  two  incompatible 
devotions. 

This  tour  of  1863  ended,  on  May  8,  at  Glasgow,  where 
Mrs.  Stirling  took  her  benefit,  at  the  Prince's  Theatre,  with 
"  The  Ladies'  Battle,"  and  "  The  Tragedy  Queen."  Thence 
she  wrote  to  her  friend: 


THE  ADELPHI,  AND  SOME  SPEECHES    179 

\ 

145,  WEST  CAMPBELL  STREET, 

GLASGOW. 

Only  time  for  a  line  to  tell  you  you  must  have  mistaken  the  title 
of  the  book  you  told  me  to  read — Nut  Brown  Maids.  I  got  it  Satur- 
day, and  feel  certain  'tis  not  what  you  meant.  There's  no  old  woman 
in  it.  It's  about  Queen  Bess,  with  a  tedious  affectation  of  the  old 
style — tiresome  to  the  last  degree.  Mrs.  Trench  I'm  to  have  to-morrow. 
Do  you  know  of  anything  dramatic — a  sort  of  semi  "sensation" 
drama  ?  The  difficulty  is  that  I  am  not  young  and  lovely.  "  East 
Lynne  " x  has  been  suggested,  if  we  could  get  over  the  difficulty  of 
the  cause  of  her  running  away.  Can  you  suggest  anything  ? 

Mrs.  Stirling's  doubts,  as  to  whether  she  should  continue 
her  stage  life,  were  over  by  the  summer.  On  August  24, 
1863,  she  accepted  an  engagement  at  the  Adelphi,  under 
Ben  Webster,  to  undertake  the  lead  in  "Hen  and  Chickens," 
a  domestic  comedy  from  the  French,  by  Ben  Webster 
junior.  She  had  a  warm  reception  from  a  full  house,  and 

acted  with  all  that  natural  vivacity  and  refined  grace  and  feeling 
which  have  so  long  obtained  for  her  the  deserved  admiration  of  the 
public.  The  overflowing  of  maternal  love,  excusable  in  its  very 
excess,  could  not  have  been  more  earnestly  depicted,  and  her 
occasional  touches  of  unaffected  pathos  went  directly  home  to  the 
heart. 

Thus  the  Daily  Telegraph,  in  its  best  lyrical  style,2  and 
other  papers  followed  suit.  Her  part,  "  Mrs.  Soft  Saw- 
derley,"  was  that  of 

a  gently  despotic  mother-in-law,  who  stifles  and  disarms  opposition 
by  the  use  of  every  wile  and  artifice  known  to  the  feminine  mind — 
a  soft-hearted  aristocrat,  now  coaxing  and  hypocritically  deferential, 
now  compelling  sympathy  by  violent  displays  of  emotional  grief! 

This  sort  of  work  had  been  for  years  well  within  her 
range ;  and  won  for  her  the  honours  of  the  evening.  Ben 
Webster  led  her  before  the  curtain,  to  take  her  call ;  and 
it  was  on  this  occasion,  I  think,  or  very  soon  after,  that 
a  certain  impulsive  and  appreciative  young  lady,  sitting 
among  the  audience,  was  heard  to  exclaim  concerning  Mrs. 
Stirling :  "  Ah  !  that's  what  I  call  an  actress  !  "  Her 
name  was  Ellen  Terry.8 

1  Mrs.  Henry  Wood's  novel  had  been  published  in  1861. 

a  August  25,  1863. 

8  Then  in  her  sixteenth  year. 


180     THE  STAGE  LIFE  OF  MRS.  STIRLING 

During  these  Adelphi  days,  under  Ben  Webster,  occurred 
another  incident  that  may  as  well  come  in  here. 

With  a  party  of  three  or  four  friends,  Mrs.  Stirling,  one 
day,  visited  the  Royal  Mint.  Immediately  upon  their  arrival, 
Mr.  Joseph  Newton,  Her  Majesty's  Chief  Coiner,  recognized 
the  actress,  and,  without  revealing  his  secret,  dismissed  the 
official  guide,  and  himself  did  the  honours  of  the  building, 
where  a  coinage  of  gold  was  then  in  progress.  When  the 
inspection  was  over,  Mrs.  Stirling  made  a  little  speech  of 
appreciation  and  thanks  to  their  guide,  who  answered,  that 
this  was  but  a  small  return  for  the  pleasure  she  had  given 
him  upon  many  occasions. 

"Then  you  knew  me  when  I  came  to  the  Mint  ?  " 

"Knew  you!  I  was  present  when  you  made  your  first 
curtsey  to  a  metropolitan  audience  at  the  Adelphi  Theatre, 
and  played  '  Biddy  Nutts '  in  Buckstone's  drama,  '  The 
Wreck  Ashore'."1 

"Please  do  not  say  how  long  ago  it  was,  but  you  are 
quite  correct  as  to  the  fact."  2 

"  Since  that  day  I  have  seen  you  hundreds  of  times,  in 
an  infinite  variety  of  characters,  and  have  admired  you  in 
them  all ! " 

"This  is  indeed  fame,"  murmured  the  actress,  as  she 
thanked  him,  and  said  good-bye. 

"  Yet  one  moment,"  said  the  man  of  money  ;  "  I  do  not 
wish  you  to  leave  the  Mint  empty-handed.  Will  you  please 
accept  this  small  case  of  Maundy  Money,  as  a  memento  of 
your  visit  ?  " 

"  This  is  really  too  bad  !  You  make  me  a  presentation 
of  plate ;  and  I,  having  had  no  notice  of  it,  have  no  speech 
ready  in  reply.  Are  you  married  ?  " 

Newton  admitted  to  a  wife  and  children. 

"  I  will  send  you  a  box  for  the  Adelphi,  next  Friday, 
when  you  will  see  me  attempt  '  Peg  Woffington '  in  '  Masks 
and  Faces,'  which  I  think  the  best  part  I  ever  played." 

1  He  should  have  said   "  West-End  audience "  :    moreover,   the  play 
was  not  "  The  Wreck  Ashore  " — in  which  she  had  played  at  the  Pavilion 
in  1832 — it  was  "A  Dream  at  Sea,"  the  date  January  1,  1836.     See  ante, 
p.  35. 

2  He  was  not  correct.    See  last  note.    The  anecdote  is  from  the  Era 
Almanac. 


MRS.    STIRLING. 

From  the  Painting  by  WALTER,  GOODMAN. 
Reproduced  by  courtesy  of  the  Committee  of  the  Garrick  Club. 


To  face  p.  ISO. 


THE  ADELPHI,  AND  SOME  SPEECHES  181 

So  it  was  done ;  and  the  pair  were  friends  from  that  day 
forth. 

On  February  10,  1864,  Mrs.  Stirling  sat  on  the  right  of 
the  chairman,  J.  B.  Buckstone,  the  veteran  author  of  the 
play  referred  to  by  Mr.  Newton,  of  the  Mint — at  the  Ash 
Wednesday l  dinner  of  the  Dramatic  and  Musical  Sick 
Fund — and  replied  to  the  toast  of  "  The  Lady  Visitors," 
proposed  by  Robert  Bell. 

We  all  know  that  we  of  the  theatrical  profession  do  not  keep  much 
ready  talk  about  us.  We  generally  draw  upon  the  author  for  speech 
currency,  and  our  drafts,  or  ladies'  debts,  are  generally  honoured 
and  paid.  I  am  proud  to  be  your  spokeswoman  on  this  occasion. 
It  always  seems  to  me,  through  the  large  preponderance  of  black 
coats  at  public  dinners,  that  the  gentlemen  represent  a  dark  cloud. 
(Laughter.)  Your  Committee  has  been  the  first  to  give  the  dark 
cloud  a  silver  lining  in  the  shape  of  the  ladies.  (Cheers.)  Instead 
of  sending  poor  Jill  to  that  dreary  little  ladies'  gallery,  all  alone  to 
the  cold  chicken  and  sherry,  you  have  brought  her  down  to  the  good 
cheer  of  the  table,  and  Jack  ought  to  feel  much  happier  with  his  Jill 
beside  him.  (Laughter.)  By  Jill  I  do  not,  of  course,  allude  to  his 
half-pints  of  wine,  but  only  to  his  guardian  angel  in  crinoline. 
(Laughter.) 

I  have  lately  played  in  "  Hen  and  Chickens,"  and  I  feel  to-night 
that  I  am  going  along  in  the  same  character.  I  feel  monstrously  like 
an  old  hen  clucking  with  all  her  chickens  round  her,  in  the  shape  of 
my  young  sisters  of  the  stage,  or,  as  I  should  call  them,  our  ducks. 
(Loud  cheers.)  You  are  right,  gentlemen  ;  that  is  a  more  fitting 
image  to  express  the  subject  of  "  Dame  Partlett's  "  affection,  the 
object  of  her  tender  anxiety — the  brood  she  sees  playing  by  the  water's 
edge,  into  which  so  many  poor  little  chicks  have  so  thoughtlessly 
plunged.  She  does  not  know  which  of  them  cannot  swim,  and  her 
heart  flutters  with  alarm  for  the  safety  of  her  little  ones.  She  only 
knows  the  water  is  deep  and  dangerous,  and  she  must  be  fussy  and 
sad  at  heart  in  thinking  of  the  horrible  perils  and  sufferings  that  may 
be  in  store  for  her  pretty,  bright-winged,  and  happy  looking  ducklings. 
(Cheers.)  I  thank  Heaven  there  are  safeguards  and  preservations 
that  our  foresight  cannot  but  call  up  before  us. 

Thus,  between  stages  and  speeches,  the  years  passed 
by.  The  actress's  next  part  was  played,  some  twelve  months 
later,  at  the  same  theatre,  in  a  curtain-raiser,  also  from 

1  These  functions  were  held  on  Ash  Wednesday,  because  the  Lord 
Chamberlain  had  seen  fit  to  close  the  London  theatres  upon  that  day. 
Despite  many  and  bitter  protests — from  John  Hollingshead  in  particular — 
the  order  remained  in  force  for  several  years. 


182     THE  STAGE  LIFE  OF  MRS.   STIRLING 

the  French,  by  the  same  author,  Ben  Webster  junior, 
as  a  prelude  to  her  "  Peg,"  in  "  Masks  and  Faces,"  which, 
with  "  Olivia,"  in  "  The  Vicar  of  Wakefield,"  were  still  two 
main  items  in  her  repertoire.  The  piece  in  question,  "  A 
Woman  of  Business,"  asked  nothing  new  of  her.  The 
interest  of  the  occasion  to  a  modern  reader  is  just  this, 
that  she  played  it  in  company  with  the  friend — one  of  the 
few  intimate  friends — of  Henry  Irving,  namely  J.  L.  Toole. 
The  famous  comedian  undertook,  on  that  night,  a  role 
somewhat  outside  his  usual  line,  thus  moving  The  Times 
critic  to  write  :  "  People  may  require  to  be  told  that  Mr. 
J.  L.  Toole  can  depict  a  bumpkin  with  a  South-country 
dialect,  as  accurately  as  he  pourtrays  a  cockney."  l 

A  drink-play  well  written — as  Reade,  Robertson,  Zola, 
and  others  have  realized — is  certain  of  some  popular  success. 
It  touches  chords  of  human  emotion,  and  awakens  interest 
in  moral  problems  that  come  close  to  the  lives  of  the  people  : 
it  provides  effective  contrasts,  and  dramatic  situations, 
and,  withal,  affords  opportunities  for  powerful  acting,  at 
once  humorous  and  serious.  Provided  that  the  author  will 
consent  to  remain  a  dramatist,  without  descending  to  the 
mere  pamphleteer,  he  may,  if  he  knows  his  business,  be 
sure  of  a  run,  even  though  there  be  no  Charles  Warner 
ready  to  hand. 

In  such  a  play,  at  the  Adelphi,  Mrs.  Stirling  next  took 
part.2  It  was  from  "  Les  Drames  du  Cabaret,"  3— ("  The 
Workmen  of  Paris  ") — written  by  Adolphe  d'Ennery  and 
Dumanoir,  for  the  Porte  St.  Martin,  and  was  a  complete 
success  in  London.  Ben  Webster,  as  "  Von  Gratz,"  gave 
a  great  performance — one  of  the  strongest  of  his  career — 
and,  as  "  Marguerite,"  Mrs.  Stirling  was  also  at  her  best. 
Blanchard  wrote  in  his  diary,  that  he  was  "  delighted  with 
it,"  and  the  press  generally,  as  well  as  the  public,  approved. 
The  following  is  from  the  Daily  Telegraph :  4 

For  intensity  of  purpose  and  minute  discrimination  of  character 
there  has  been  nothing  like  it,  of  late,  exhibited  upon  the  English  stage. 
Mrs.  Stirling  had  full  scope  for  the  display  of  that  earnestness  and 

1  The  Times,  August  31,  1854. 

2  November  30,  1864. 

1  Another  forerunner  of  the  naturalist  drama 
4  December  1,  1864. 


THE  ADELPHI,  AND   SOME   SPEECHES    183 

natural  emotion,  of  which  she  is  so  complete  a  mistress.  .  .  .  Through- 
out the  performance  the  most  unequivocal  indications  of  the  deep 
interest  taken  by  the  audience  were  abundantly  manifested,  and  the 
curtain  fell  amid  loud  and  prolonged  applause. 

During  1865  Mrs.  Stirling  rested,  or  occupied  herself 
principally  with  teaching,  which,  in  view  of  her  gradual 
retirement  from  the  stage,  was  engaging  more  and  more 
of  her  time.  March  1,  however,  found  her  again  at  her 
post,  on  the  occasion  of  the  ninth  anniversary  dinner  of 
the  Dramatic  Fund.  Her  speech  by  no  means  reached 
her  usual  level  of  excellence ;  but  the  one  she  delivered 
on  Valentine's  Day  of  the  year  following,  1866,  was  a  great 
improvement,  and  was  in  a  degree  towards  her  happiest 
vein.  The  speaker  stood  on  the  right  hand  of  Dickens, 
who  was  in  the  chair.  On  his  left  sat  Miss  Howard,  and 
next  to  her  Serjeant  Ballantyne,  to  whom  Mrs.  Stirling 
was  later  to  make  witty  reference,  when  the  Tichborne 
Case  was  London's  only  theme.  Dickens  introduced  her 
thus  : 

It  is  the  privilege  of  this  Society  annually  to  hear  a  lady  speak 
for  her  own  sex.  Who  so  competent  to  do  this  as  Mrs.  Stirling  ? 
Surely  one  who  has  so  gracefully  and  so  captivatingly,  with  such 
an  exquisite  mixture  of  art,  and  fancy,  and  fidelity  represented  her 
own  sex  in  innumerable  characters,  under  an  infinite  variety  of  phases, 
cannot  fail  to  represent  them  well  in  her  own  character,  especially 
when  it  is,  amid  her  many  triumphs,  the  most  agreeable  of  all.  I 
beg  to  propose  to  you  "  The  Ladies,"  and  I  will  couple  with  that  toast 
the  name  of  Mrs.  Stirling. 

That  lady  then  replied  : 

Mr.  Chairman,  Ladies  and  Gentlemen, — You  have  thought  fit  to 
couple  my  name  with  the  ladies.  Now,  for  that  act  I  retort  by 
charging  you  with  high  treason  to  Saint  Valentine  and  his  day.  You 
are  the  last  man  to  deserve  pardon  for  the  offence,  for  you  have  shown 
by  your  witty  and  eloquent  allusions  that  you  had  the  day  and  its 
duties  fully  in  your  mind.  It  is  treason,  I  say,  to  Saint  Valentine  and 
his  day,  to  couple  anything  with  the  ladies  but  the  gentlemen.  And, 
talking  of  Saint  Valentine — in  these  days  of  archaeology,  ecclesiology, 
and  other  ologies — isn't  it  a  great  reproach  to  our  learned  men  that 
they  have  not  been  able  to  discover  why  Saint  Valentine  should  be 
selected  as  patron  of  the  sweet-hearting  and  billet-douxing  which 
goes  on  to-day  through  the  post  ? 


184     THE  STAGE  LIFE  OF  MRS.   STIRLING 

Til  be  bound  the  ladies  would  not  have  been  so  long  in  finding 
the  reason ;  indeed,  I  believe  the  first  lady  who  ever  tried  to  find 
it  did  find  it,  and,  as  "Peg  Woffington"  might  say,  "Sure,  that's 
myself."  I'll  tell  it  you.  But  mind,  I  give  you  all  notice,  the 
reporters  in  particular,  that  the  discovery,  like  our  ghosts  and  sen- 
sation effects,  is  copyright  and  patent.  No,  if  it  were  patent  anybody 
might  have  found  it  out  only  they  haven't.  Well,  this  is  my  dis- 
covery ;  I  made  it  by  the  help  of  the  old  lives  of  the  Saints  called 
The  Golden  Legend.  It  told  me  first  that  Saint  Valentine  was  a 
saint  and  martyr  of  the  time  of  Claudius.  Now,  there  seemed  some- 
thing to  the  point  even  in  that.  Most  young  ladies  are  disposed  to 
make  saints  of  their  sweethearts,  and  vice  versa ;  and  if  Valentines 
lead  to  the  Temple  of  Hymen,  as  so  many  of  them  do,  not  a  few  wives 
are  ready  to  make  martyrs  of  their  husbands,  and  vice  versa. 

But  that  didn't  satisfy  me.  Reading  further,  I  found  that  Saint 
Valentine's  great  miracle  was  opening  a  blind  young  girl's  eyes,  and 
then  I  felt  I  had  it.  Love  is  blind,  they  say.  I  say,  au  contraire, 
young  ladies  are  blind  to  the  merits  of  the  gentlemen,  tilJ  love  opens 
their  eyes  for  them,  and  Cupid  works  quite  as  great  miracles  that 
way  as  ever  Saint  Valentine  did ;  and  that,  I  take  it,  is  the  reason 
why  Saint  Valentine  is  Cupid's  father  confessor,  and  his  day  the  love- 
letter  day  of  the  calendar.  As  this  is  the  first  public  dinner  at  which 
the  ladies  have  been  invited  to  sit  down  with  the  gentlemen,  what 
day  can  be  more  appropriate  for  its  celebration  than  Saint  Valentine's  ? 
I  hope  every  gentleman  present  has  come  prepared  not  only  with 
his  subscription,  but  with  his  Valentine,  to  slip  into  the  hand  of  the 
fair  lady  at  his  side.  If  any  of  you  have  come  unprepared  with  the 
necessary  documents,  instead  of  a  billet-doux  slip  a  billet  de  banque 
into  her  hand,  to  be  added  to  her  subscription.  I  defy  you  to  find 
a  fitter  way  of  paying  your  addresses  ;  for  what  better  love-letters 
than  £  s.  d.  when  they  go  on  an  errand  of  mercy,  like  subscriptions 
to  this  charity  ? 

But  to-day,  as  we  have  been  reminded,  is  Ash  Wednesday,  as 
well  as  Saint  Valentine's  Day.  We  actors  and  actresses  should  be 
the  last  persons  to  be  startled  by  the  coincidence.  How  many  of 
our  days,  in  the  earlier  stages  of  our  career  at  least,  are  like  this, 
consecrated  at  once  to  love-making  in  play  and  in  public,  and  to 
fasting  in  sorry  earnest  at  home.  Our  object  to-day  is  not  feasting 
but  charity.  If  there  be  feeding,  let  it  not  be  ours  only,  but  that 
of  the  hungry  mouths  your  benevolence  will  help  to  fill.  There  used 
to  be  Lenten  oratorios.  Let  our  Lenten  oratorio  be  the  chorus  of 
grateful  prayers  that  your  kindness  will  call  forth — the  songs  of  thank- 
fulness from  the  sick  and  the  suffering — the  widow  and  the  orphan 
— from  those  who,  but  for  you,  might  be  abandoned — those  who, 
but  for  your  timely  aid,  might  sink  into  the  sad  ranks  of  the  forlorn 
and  the  despairing. 

And  now,  Sir,  in  the  name  of  the  ladies,  what  am  I  to  say  to  you 
that  is  at  once  as  pretty  as  the  faces  about  me,  and  as  grateful  as 


THE  ADELPHI,  AND  SOME  SPEECHES  185 

my  own  heart  ?  You  have  coupled  my  name  with  the  ladies,  but 
how  are  the  ladies  bound  to  couple  your  name  with  theirs,  not  here 
only  but  all  the  world  over,  as  the  creator  of  so  many  pure  and  beauti- 
ful pictures  of  womanhood — between  whom,  if  not  between  you  and 
our  sex,  should  be  established  the  title  of  "  Our  Mutual  Friend." 

Gentlemen,  you  have  kindly  drunk  our  healths.  Let  me,  for 
self  and  sisters,  say  to  you  in  -the  words  of  Rip  Van  Winkle  :  "  Here's 
your  good  healths,  and  your  families — and  may  they  live  long  and 
prosper."  (Loud  and  long-continued  cheering.) 


Mrs.  Stirling's  only  important  appearance  during  1866, 
in  a  new  r61e,  was  at  the  Princess's,  on  July  2,  when 
she  impersonated  a  French  aristocrat,  the  Duchesse  Jeanne 
d'Armenonville,  in  Watts  Phillips'  play,  "  The  Huguenot 
Captain,"  the  plot  of  which — though  the  story  be  set  in 
sixteenth-century  Paris,  soon  after  the  massacre  of  St. 
Bartholomew — is  taken  from  a  scene  in  Beaumont  and 
Fletcher's  "  Custom  of  Country,"  where  "  Guiomar,"  a  noble 
Portuguese  lady,  conceals  a  foreign  gentleman,  who,  pursued 
by  officers  of  justice,  rushes  into  her  house.  She  then 
discovers  that  he  has  killed  her  own  son  in  a  duel. 

Dramatically  "  The  Huguenot  Captain  "  was  not  very 
effective,  though  interesting,  as  the  work  of  an  archaeologist, 
as  well  as  a  playwright — one  who  knew,  and  loved,  the  old 
Paris  of  King  Henry  of  Navarre,  to  whom  the  shining  Seine, 
the  Tour  de  Nesle,  and  the  soaring  bulk  of  Notre  Dame, 
were  full  of  memories,  and  of  meaning,  and  who  had  seen 
the  truth  and  beauty  of  those  grotesque  figures  that  have 
come  down  to  us  from  the  pen  of  the  Lorrainer,  Jacques 
Callot. 

There  follows  a  space  of  silence  ;  and  then,  after  a  lapse 
of  several  years,  says  The  Times  l — not  very  accurately,  for 
"  The  Huguenot  Captain  "  had  been  running  only  seventeen 
months  before — 

Mrs.  Stirling  has  returned  to  the  Olympic,  a  theatre  whose  best  days 
are  closely  associated  with  her  name,  to  enact  "  Lady  Diver  Kidd," 
and  gives  a  richly  coloured  picture  of  a  woman  in  whom  love  of  gain 
has  risen  to  a  glowing  passion,  and  who  is  totally  distinct  from  those 
charming  widows  of  whom  M.  Scribe  created  so  many  specimens, 
until  he  ended  by  marrying  one  himself. 

1  December  6,  1867. 


186     THE  STAGE  LIFE   OF  MRS.   STIRLING 

The  play  referred  to  was  "  From  Grave  to  Gay,"  another 
of  Ben  Webster  junior's  adaptations,  this  time  from  the 
French  of  Scribe  and  Charles  Potron,  "  Feu  Lionel,"  the 
penultimate  effort,  I  believe,  of  the  playwright  from  whom 
so  many  Englishmen  had  borrowed.  Its  plot,  turning  upon 
the  supposed  suicide  of  one  who  was  in  fact  alive,  recalls, 
to  that  extent,  Mr.  Arnold  Bennett's  "  Great  Adventure." 
Mrs.  Stirling  won  a  fair  share  of  what  little  sympathy  was 
going,  "  rattled  off  quotations  from  the  share  list  as  fluently 
as  if  her  whole  life  had  been  passed  in  a  Stockbroker's 
Office,"  and  was  as  gay,  fresh,  and  welcome  as  ever.  But 
the  life  and  soul  of  the  whole  performance  was  the  "  Richard 
Wise  "  of  Charles  Mathews,  "  the  man  whom  no  difficulty 
can  perplex,  to  whom  every  peril  suggests  a  mode  of  escape, 
and  who  is  constantly  kept  up  to  the  mark  by  a  keen  sense 
of  the  ridiculous,  which  enables  him  to  detect  a  droll  side 
ever  to  the  most  serious  calamity." 

Early  in  the  .next  year,  February  1868,  Mrs.  Stirling, 
after  playing  the  original  "  Mrs.  Eddystone,"  in  Stirling 
Coyne's  domestic  comedy,  "  The  Woman  of  the  World  " — 
a  good  acting  part  in  an  otherwise  undistinguished  produc- 
tion— left  the  Olympic  Theatre,  upon  whose  boards  she  had 
won  so  many  successes,  and  withdrew  once  more — this 
time  for  a  period  of  some  ten  years — from  active  stage 
work. 


CHAPTER   XV 

CONDITION   OF    THE   ENGLISH  THEATRE 

IN    1868 

1868-78 

Causes  of  Mrs.  Stirling's  withdrawal — Decadence  of  the  Stage  in  1868 — 
Dearth  of  great  players  and  playwrights — The  coming  people — 
Robertson  and  the  Bancrofts  harbingers  of  the  revival — Pinero's 
tribute  to  them — Robertson  as  Dramatist — Compared  with  Tom 
Taylor — Beginnings  of  Realism  in  Europe — Naturalistic  School  in 
France — The  Scandinavians  and  Strindberg — Ibsen's  influence  upon 
the  revival — Pinero  and  H.  Arthur  Jones — Matthew  Arnold  on 
"  The  Silver  King  "  as  a  transitional  play — Mrs.  Stirling  teaches 
elocution — Her  qualifications  and  limitations  as  Professor — "  Bigger  ! 
my  dear,  bigger  !  " — The  Royal  Academy  of  Music  Legend — Its 
genesis,  and  the  facts — Mrs.  Stirling  reads  "  A  Midsummer  Night's 
Dream "  at  Brighton — Repeats  it  at  St.  James's  Hall,  London — 
Benefit  performances  of  "  Mrs.  Candour." 

WHAT  causes,  exactly,  may  have  brought  about  Mrs.  Stirling's 
decision  to  withdraw  from  the  stage,  I  am  unable  with 
absolute  certainty  to  determine  ;  but,  in  addition  to  the 
fact  that  the  actress  was  now  in  her  fifty-fifth  year,  and 
physically  ailing,  other  potent  reasons  are  not  far  to  seek. 
A  primary  one,  I  doubt  not,  was  the  condition  of  the  English 
stage  at  that  time. 

The  picture  is  not,  at  first  sight,  a  very  hopeful  one. 
Actors  and  actresses  of  first-rate  ability  there  were  very 
few ;  playwrights  there  were  almost  none,  competent  to 
furnish  her  with  original  parts  really  worthy  of  her  calibre ; 
nor  was  there,  in  those  days,  any  manager,  who,  as  Macready 
had  done — and  as  Irving  was  to  do — could  take  upon  his 
shoulders  the  representation  of  our  national  dramatists,  and 
make  his  theatre  the  home  of  a  truly  national  art.  Upon 
Samuel  Phelps,  if  upon  any  man,  the  mantle  of  Macready 
fell ;  but  Phelps,  though  an  excellent  and  praiseworthy 
manager — who  deserved  perhaps  more  recognition  than  ever 

187 


188     THE  STAGE  LIFE  OF  MRS.   STIRLING 

he  obtained — was  never  in  charge  of  a  West-End  theatre — 
Sadler's  Wells,  which  he  governed  from  1844  until  Novem- 
ber 6,  1852,  being  only  a  "minor."  It  was,  nevertheless,  the 
success  of  Phelps  at  Sadler's  Wells,  in  national  drama,  that 
induced  Charles  Kean — his  rival  for  nine  years — to  enter 
the  lists  at  the  Princess's  ;  but  Charles  Kean's  management 
was,  from  the  critic's  point  of  view,  archaeological  and 
spectacular,  rather  than  histrionic  ;  so  that  neither  of  these 
actors  can  be  said  to  have  represented  the  national  drama, 
as  had  their  predecessor,  Macready. 

On  the  whole,  the  ever- recurring  cry,  "  Our  Drama  is 
decadent,"  was  more  true  of  those  days,  I  should  judge, 
than  of  any  others  throughout  the  century.  In  the  autumn 
following  upon  Mrs.  Stirling's  retirement,  a  Saturday 
Reviewer  wrote  : l 

We  are  justified  in  concluding  that  the  drama  has  reached  a  lower 
stage  in  its  decline  than  at  any  former  period  of  its  existence,  and 
that,  as  a  peculiar  institution,  it  closely  approximates  to  utter  extinc- 
tion. In  the  drama  two  arts  co-operate — that  of  the  writer  and  that 
of  the  actor — and,  however  the  Nestors  of  former  times  lamented 
on  the  deterioration  of  the  stage,  they  did  not  contemplate  a  school 
in  which  writing  and  acting  alike  should  be  without  practical  value. 
.  .  We  are  passing  from  drama,  good  or  bad,  into  no  drama  at  all. 

These  are  strong  words.  How  far  were  they  justified  ? 
Let  us  look  for  a  moment,  rather  more  in  detail,  at  the 
then  condition  of  the  British  stage. 

To  take  the  players  first,  there  was,  as  we  have  seen, 
no  living  individual  upon  whom  the  mantle  of  the  great 
ones  had  fallen.  Macready,  long  since  retired,2  had  but 
some  five  years  more  of  life  before  him.  Charles  Kean, 
who,  though  never  a  great  actor,  was  at  least  a  Shakespearean, 
and  a  conscientious  producer,  had  died  in  the  year  of  which 
I  am  writing — 1868 ;  and  Henry  Irving,  already  an  ex 
perienced  and  rising  player,  for  whom  the  highest  honours 
are  in  store,  had  yet  before  him  ten  years  of  arduous  work, 
ere  the  coming  of  that  memorable  day 3  when,  as  sole 
manager  of  the  Lyceum,  he  was  to  appear  in  his  first,  and 

1  September  26,  1868. 

2  February  1851.     He  died  April  27,  1873. 
8  Boxing  Night,  December  26,  1878. 


THE  ENGLISH  THEATRE  IN  1868          189 

in  some  respects  greatest,  Shakespearean  impersonation, 
"Hamlet."! 

Of  the  lighter  actors,  many  had  already  passed  their 
prime.  Charles  Mathews  the  younger,  who  had  played 
"Frank  Merriton "  to  Mrs.  Stirling's  "Mrs.  Eddystone " 
in  "A  Woman  of  the  World,"  and  was  destined  to  die  in 
harness  at  seventy-five,  had  already  sixty-five  years  to  his 
credit.  Robson,  the  greatest  burlesque  actor  of  his  day, 
had  passed  prematurely,  at  forty-three  years  of  age,  in  1864  ; 
John  Hare  2  and  Kendal,  still  very  young,  had  their  feet 
only  upon  the  lower  rungs  of  the  ladder  of  fame,  while, 
of  other  men  then  known  or  to  be  known  in  their  various 
spheres,  Squire  Bancroft  was  twenty-seven,3  Forbes- 
Robertson  4 — who  did  not  act  until  he  was  twenty-one — 
was  fifteen,  Beerbohm  Tree  5  was  the  same  age,  and  Frank 
Benson6  was  ten. 

In  the  matter  of  actresses,  as  well  as  of  actors,  these 
were  days  of  comparative  dearth.  The  passing  of  Mrs. 
Glover,  and  the  retirement  of  Mrs.  Stirling,  had  robbed 
our  theatre  of  its  two  greatest  comediennes.  Helen  Faucit — 
though  her  last  appearance  upon  the  stage  was  as  late  as 
1879 — had  already  accomplished  the  bulk  of  her  life's  work, 
and,  personal  successes  notwithstanding,  was  often  inclined 
to  despond  concerning  its  result.  "  She  had  seen  so  great  a 
decline  in  the  tone  of  the  theatrical  world  " — wrote  'her 
husband — "  and  in  the  character  of  the  plays  which  were 
most  popular,  that  this  fear  [that  she  had  lived  in  vain] 
at  times  took  a  strong  hold  of  her." 

Of  the  remaining  notable  actresses  of  the  day,  Ellen 
Tree  7  (Mrs.  Charles  Kean),  though  with  twelve  years  of  life 
yet  before  her,  had  withdrawn  from  active  work,  and,  of 
the  younger  actresses,  who  were  to  attain  foremost  positions, 
EUen  Terry,  though  already  well  known,  was  not  to  achieve 
her  first  great  Shakespearean  triumph,  as  "Portia,"  until 
1875.  Two  young  comediennes  of  quite  rare  ability  were, 

1  Miss  Ellen  Terry,  I  think,  puts  "Wolsey"  first;  and  many  others, 
doubtless,  think  so  with  her. 

8  First  appearance  in  London  at  Princess's,  1859,  in  John  Oxenford's 
romantic  drama,  "  Ivy  Hale." 

3  Born  May  14,  1841.  '  Born  January  16,  1853. 

8  1853-1917.  6  Bora  November  4,  1858.  '  1808-1880. 


190     THE  STAGE  LIFE   OF  MRS.   STIRLING 

however,  nearing  already  the  height  of  their  fame — I  mean, 
of  course,  Madge  Robertson  (Mrs.  Kendal) — whose  brother, 
T.  W.  Robertson,  was  now  the  leading  dramatist  of  the  day 
— and  Marie  Wilton  (Lady  Bancroft),  who  by  producing,  with 
her  husband,  Robertson's  "  Society,"  at  the  "  Dust  Hole," 
off  Tottenham  Court  Road,  on  November  11,  1865,  had 
proved  her  capacity  as  manageress  as  well  as  actress  ;  and 
had  given  a  stepping-stone  to  another  actor  of  high  ability, 
John  Hare. 

From  a  perusal  of  this  long  catalogue  of  facts,  the  plain 
truth  clearly  emerges,  that,  dark  though  the  night  had  been, 
the  dawn  was  already  rising,  had  indeed  risen ;  that  its 
harbingers  were  Robertson  and  the  Bancrofts  ;  and  its  east 
The  Prince  of  Wales's  Theatre.  Of  those  days  of  quickening, 
Mr.  Pinero,  as  he  then  was,  wrote  to  the  Bancrofts,  at  the 
time  of  their  retirement,  in  1884  : 

It  is  my  opinion,  expressed  here  as  it  is  elsewhere,  that  the 
present  advanced  condition  of  the  English  stage — throwing  as  it 
does  a  clear  and  natural  light  upon  the  manners  and  life  of  the  people, 
where  a  few  years  ago  there  was  nothing  but  mouthing  and  tinsel — 
is  due  to  the  crusade  begun  by  Mrs.  Bancroft  and  yourself  in  your 
little  Prince  of  Wales's  Theatre.  When  the  history  of  the  stage  and 
its  progress  is  adequately  and  faithfully  written,  Mrs.  Bancroft's  name 
and  your  own  must  be  recorded  with  honour  and  gratitude. 

Pinero's  was  no  lonely  voice.  Others,  who  possessed 
the  vision — Moy  Thomas  among  them — wrote  in  similar 
strain : 

The  influence  of  your  reign,  both  at  the  Prince  of  Wales  and 
the  Haymarket,  will  remain  and  grow.  It  is  easy,  as  Tennyson  says, 
to  sow  where  you  have  the  seed. 

Yes,  it  is  easy  then  ;  but  let  us  turn  again  to  the  personnel. 

If  there  were  dearth,  at  that  time,  of  great  players, 
the  same  was  not  less  true  of  playwrights.  This  may 
seem  a  hard  saying,  when  one  recalls  that,  only  a  year  before, 
in  April  1867,  the  triumphant  success  of  "  Caste,"  at  the 
little  Prince  of  Wales's,  had  set  all  London  talking,  and  had 
almost  marked  a  new  era  in  stage  history,  by  driving  a  nail 
into  the  coffins  of  the  old  stock  companies,  when,  in  due 


THE  ENGLISH  THEATRE  IN  1868          191 

course,  a  properly  trained  and  equipped  company  took 
that  dainty  comedy  into  the  provinces. 

That  these  things  happened  is  true :  that  one  swallow 
makes  no  summer  is  true  also.  Yet  Tom  Robertson,  though 
not  in  himself  that  summer,  was  assuredly  its  winged  herald ; 
and  we  who  love  the  stage,  and  have  basked  in  that  full  sun- 
shine, when  it  came,  owe  gratitude  to  the  man  who  brought 
so  refreshing  a  human  sentiment,  and  so  delicate  an  art, 
to  a  theatre  that  sorely  needed  them  all.  That  said,  however, 
— and  said  earnestly — it  must  be  admitted  that,  from  the 
technical  point  of  view,  Robertson  can  hardly  be  regarded 
as  an  original  writer  much  in  advance  of  the  dramatic  fashion 
of  his  time. 

Where  he  did  show  himself  greatly  in  the  quality  of 
pioneer,  was  as  a  producer,  and  as  a  striver  after  truth  both 
in  acting  and  in  stage  setting,  reforms  in  gratitude  for 
which  we  can  forgive  and  forget  his  triviality,  his  haste, 
and  his  occasional  carelessness.1 

Nevertheless,  though  touched  by  the  newer  truth,  he 
was  neither  strong  enough,  nor  big  enough,  to  become  its 
prophet.  Not  through  one  alone,  but  gradually,  in  many 
minds,  the  transforming  ideas  were  to  be  begotten.  Little 
by  little  the  spirit  of  revolt,  from  the  influences  of  Scribe 
and  Sardou,  was  to  permeate  Western  Europe.  In  their 
own  France  the  naturalistic  school — among  whom  Zola's 
is  the  greatest  name — reacting  against  mechanical  con- 
struction and  characters  devoid  of  truth,  began  to  gather 
about  Antoine  and  the  Theatre  Libre.  Ugly,  coarse  and 
formless  the  work  of  those  men  may  often  have  been,  but 
they  did,  at  least,  make  plays  that  were  real,  according  to 
their  interpretation  of  that  word. 

Then,  in  Scandinavia,  the  true  dramatic  realists  make 
themselves  heard — most  vehement  among  them  Strindberg,2 
despairing,  hopeless,  terrible  almost ;  yet  gifted  with  a 
surprising  naturalness  of  dialogue,  and  a  wonderful  capacity 
to  create  characters  of  compelling  interest,  who  often  suggest, 
or  reveal,  a  certain  elemental  grandeur  in  the  stubborn 
intensity  of  their  revolt. 

1  Especially  he  reformed  the  then  prevalent  sin  of  over-acting. 

*  Strindberg  became  almost  as  prominent  in  Sweden  as  Ibsen  in  Norway. 


192     THE  STAGE  LIFE  OF  MRS.  STIRLING 

But  the  man  whose  influence  proved  to  be  crucial  was  not 
that  Nietzsche  of  the  stage,  Strindberg ;  it  was  that  much 
wider,  nobler,  and  loftier  realist  and  idealist,  Henrik  Ibsen. 
Himself,  for  a  time,  under  the  spell  of  the  French  masters, 
he  was  soon  to  shake  off  their  yoke,  and  fashion  a  drama 
that,  for  spiritual  intensity,  and  absolute  mastery  of  technique, 
has  never  been  rivalled  by  any  modern  writer  for  the  stage. 
Already  the  years  1866  and  1867  had  seen  the  birth,  in 
Scandinavia,  of  two  of  his  early  dramatic  attempts — "  Brand  " 
and  "  Peer  Gynt."  In  1879  was  to  come  "  The  Dolls'  House," l 
and  ten  years  later,  in  June  1889,  the  same  play,  in  Mr. 
Archer's  translation,  was  to  be  first  worthily  presented 
to  the  London  public.2 

In  this  transformation  of  the  English  drama,  Russian 
and  German  playwrights  also  had  a  share,  but  Ibsen,  be 
it  repeated,  was  the  man  who,  bearing  down  all  hostile 
criticism,  principally  determined  the  forms  of  the  new 
school.  Had  there  been  no  Ibsen,  there  would  have  been 
a  different  Shaw,  and  a  modified  Galsworthy.  As  for  the 
more  popular  predecessors  of  those  two — Pinero  and  Jones — 
Sir  Arthur  Pinero — who  began  his  stage  career  in  1874, 
and  produced  his  first  play — "  £200  a  Year,"  at  the  Globe — 
in  1877 — though  perhaps  as  near  at  heart  to  the  old  order 
as  to  the  new — certainly  felt  Ibsen's  influence,  and  showed 
it  plainly  in  such  work  as  "  The  Second  Mrs.  Tanqueray  " 3 
and  "The  Notorious  Mrs.  Ebbsmith."  * 

Mr.  Henry  Arthur  Jones,  also  a  trimmer,  on  occasion, 
between  old  France  and  New  Scandinavia,  was  seventeen 
years  old  when  this  chapter  begins  ;  but  he  was  not  to  win  his 
spurs  before  1882,  when  "  The  Silver  King  "  5  was  produced 
at  the  Princess's,  on  November  16. 

Matthew  Arnold,  a  very  keen  follower  of  the  theatre, 
was  present  upon  that  occasion,  and  has  left  us  impressions  6 

1  "  The  Dolls'  House  "  was  unworthily  presented  in  1885 — one  reviewer 
heading  his  notice — "A  silly  play  by  silly  people." 

8  "  Rosmersholm,"  the  height  of  his  achievement,  first  appeared  in  1886. 

3  First  performed   1893.     "Ghosts"  and   "  Hedda  Gabler "  had  been 
played  in  England  two  years  before. 

4  These  developments  are  ably  sketched  by  Mr.  Storm  Jameson  in  his 
Modern  Drama  in  Europe. 

5  Herman  collaborated  with  Jones  on  the  construction. 

6  Letters  oj  an  Old  Play-goer. 


THE  ENGLISH   THEATRE   IN  1868          193 

which  are  interesting,  as  showing  his  consciousness  of  the 
new  forces  then  at  work  within  our  drama.  He  reverts 
first  to  the  old  Princess's  of  Macready's  day,  when  Mrs. 
Stirling  also  was  working  there,  in  1845. 

It  was  another  world  from  the  old  Princess's  of  my  remembrance. 
The  theatre  itself  was  renewed  and  transformed  .  .  .  but  the  real 
revival  was  not  in  the  paint  and  gilding,  it  was  in  the  presence  of 
the  public  ...  a  representative  public,  furnished  from  all  classes, 
and  showing  that  English  society  at  large  had  now  taken  to  the 
theatre. 

In  "  The  Silver  King  "  Arnold  sees  clearly  a  link  between 
the  transpontine  melodrama  of  the  old  days  and  the  literary 
drama  of  the  new. 

The  sensational  incidents  of  the  transpontine  are  there,  but  in 
general  the  diction  and  sentiments  are  natural,  they  have  sobriety 
and  propriety ;  they  are  literature.  It  is  an  excellent  and  hopeful 
sign  to  find  playwrights  capable  of  writing  in  this  style,  actors  capable 
of  rendering  it,  and  a  public  capable  of  enjoying  it. 

Such,  in  brief,  was  the  condition  of  the  English  stage, 
when  Mrs.  Stirling  withdrew  from  it,  so  far  as  regular  and 
sustained  work  is  concerned.  The  old  order,  artificial  and 
anti-national — in  that  it  drew  from  the  French  most  of 
the  small  inspiration  it  possessed — had  passed,  or  was  passing  ; 
and  the  new  order,  worthily  heralded  by  Robertson  and 
the  Bancrofts,  though  already  upon  the  horizon,  was  not 
yet  risen.  Its  coming  Mrs.  Stirling  lived  to  see ;  and  in 
its  stage  triumphs  she  was  ~o  play  awhile,  a  notable  part, 
thus  linking  together,  in  her  own  personality,  generations 
of  art  far  distant  one  from  another. 

Meanwhile,  she  was  to  rest,  in  so  far  as  her  eager,  in- 
dustrious, and  indomitable  nature  would  allow  her  to  do 
so  ;  and,  resting,  her  thought  turned  toward  a  branch  of  art 
— not  highly  enough  esteemed  to-day — in  which,  from  her 
earliest  Adelphi  efforts,  almost,  she  had  been  in  the  front 
rank — I  mean  the  art  of  elocution.  She  was  now  to  make 
further  use  of  this  talent,  both  as  a  teacher,  and  upon 
the  platform. 

When  exactly  she  first  began  systematically  to  teach, 
I  do  not  know — nor  does  the  subject  come  strictly  within 

13 


194     THE   STAGE  LIFE  OF  MRS.   STIRLING 

the  scope  of  this  book ;  but  already  the  actress,  it  seems, 
was  no  novice  at  that  work.  Yet  I  cannot  help  thinking 
that  many  of  the  beginners  whom  Mrs.  Stirling  taught, 
must  have  had  a  rather  trying  time  in  her  presence.  My 
estimate  of  my  grandmother's  character  leads  me  to  suppose 
that  she  did  not  possess,  at  all  times,  patience  enough  to  suffer 
incompetents  gladly.  Of  gifted,  eager,  and  promising  pupils, 
I  can  imagine  her  an  interested  and  excellent  instructress  ; 
but  of  dense  or  stupid  ones,  rather  the  reverse.  Mrs. 
Stirling  may  well,  upon  occasion,  have  proved  too  big  for 
the  task  ;  and  my  view  is  borne  out  by  the  following  passage 
from  Frederick  Wedmore's  Memories  in  which  her  phrase — 
"  Bigger,  my  dear,  bigger ! "  that  she  reiterates,  rings 
through  one's  mind,  beside  Mrs.  Charles  Kean's  call  to  her 
pupils — Ellen  Terry  among  them — "  Plaster  that  BUT  please 
against  the  gallery  wall."  l  Thus  Mr.  Wedmore  : 

In  the  reading — the  delivery,  that  is,  of  Imaginative  Literature, 
in  prose  or  poetry — breadth  seems  to  me  of  the  first  importance — 
general  effect — the  ensemble  ;  ...  it  must  be  broad  first.  ...  In 
this  connection  I  am  reminded  of  the  phrase  of  Mrs.  Stirling,  that 
accomplished  English  actress,  who,  in  her  later  life,  gave  lessons  in 
what  is  called  elocution — I  am  reminded  of  the  word  she  was  in  the 
habit  of  launching  from  one  end  of  the  room  to  the  other — from  the 
end  where  she  sat,  to  the  end  where  there  stood  before  her  a  young 
woman,  a  friend  of  mine,  who  was  at  that  time  her  pupil.  At  the 
close  of  a  passage  Mrs.  Stirling  would  condescend  to  no  other  comment 
than  the  utterance  of  this  word,  and  the  repetition  of  it — "  Bigger, 
my  dear,  bigger !  "  The  passage,  begun  again  by  the  pupil,  was 
now  quickly  interrupted,  "  Bigger ! "  And  yet  again,  "  Bigger, 
bigger,  my  dear  !  "  Nothing  else. 

My  young  friend  thought  Mrs.  Stirling  not  meant  quite,  by 
Nature  or  by  Art,  to  be  a  teacher  of  elocution.  As  an  actress, 
authoritative  ;  but  as  a  professor,  wanting  in  resource.  Yet  Mrs 
Stirling's  first  and  most  cryingly  needed  business  was  to  attack  and 
bear  down  the  pettiness  of  the  amateur. 

My  grandmother,  in  one  of  her  later  after-dinner  speeches, 
refers  to  this  branch  of  her  work,  and  it  was,  I  believe,  for 
some  years,  the  custom  of  Miss  Ellen  Terry,  and  of  other 
actresses,  to  send  pupils  to  her.  The  knowledge  that  she 
did  private  teaching  of  this  kind  caused  the  appearance,  after 

1  Miss  Ellen  Terry's  Autobiography. 


THE   ENGLISH  THEATRE   IN  1868          195 

her  death,  in  several  obituary  notices— including  that  of 
The  Times — of  the  statement  that  Mrs.  Stirling  was  for 
several  years  a  Professor  of  Elocution  at  the  Royal  Academy 
of  Music.  I  adopted  this  belief,  for  a  while,  until,  after 
writing  to  Mr.  J.  A.  Creighton,  the  Secretary  of  that  Institu- 
tion, for  information  concerning  dates,  I  was  courteously 
informed  that  Mrs.  Stirling  had  never  been  engaged  in  any 
capacity  at  the  R.A.M.  Further  investigation  revealed  the 
fact  that  a  Mrs.  Stirling,  following,  or  contemporaneously 
with,  Mrs.  Kendal,  had  been  a  Professor  of  Declamation  at 
the  Royal  College  of  Music,  which  is  not  connected  with  the 
Academy.  This  lady,  I  discovered,  was  not  Fanny  Stirling 
nor  any  relation  of  hers,  but  Mrs,  Arthur  Stirling,  herself 
a  fine  actress,  as  her  husband  was  actor.  To  this  confusion 
of  names,  then,  is  due  the  widespread  belief,  that  Fanny 
Stirling  taught  at  the  Royal  Academy  of  Music. 

Deprived  though  the  public  now  were  of  opportunity 
to  see  her  upon  the  stage,  the  veteran  had  not  withdrawn 
altogether  into  private  life.  She  had  been  giving  occasional 
public  readings  in  the  provinces  ;  and  on  February  24,  1869, 
at  the  Grand  Concert  Hall,  Brighton,1 — her  first  appearance 
there — she  read  "  A  Midsummer  Night's  Dream,"  with 
Mendelssohn's  incidental  music,  sung  by  way  of  accompani- 
ment. 

The  chief  performer  stood  at  a  desk  on  the  right  of  the 
conductor,  upon  whose  left  were  the  two  solo  vocalists, 
Mesdemoiselles  Liebhardt  and  Angele.  The  comments  of 
the  Brighton  Herald  2  are  sufficiently  picturesque  to  stand. 

She  was  one  amidst  many,  and  the  only  agency  she  used  was  that 
of  simple  speech,  coloured,  at  times,  by  a  little  action.  When  she 
entered  all  eyes  were  upon  her,  and  when  she  spoke  all  ears  were 
stretched  to  catch  her  lightest  accents.  She  took  her  seat — her 
throne — en  reine.  For  the  time,  she  was  the  sole  representative  of 
the  poet  .  .  .  the  musicians  and  singers  were  at  her  command,  doing 
loyal  service  indeed,  but  as  an  inferior  power.  ...  As  our  readers 
are  doubtless  aware,  she  is  no  longer  young ;  but  we  doubt  if  any 
young  woman  could  read  the  "  Midsummer  Night's  Dream,"  even 
in  the  condensed  form  in  which  it  was  presented  on  Wednesday. 
Few  young  women  would  like  to  sacrifice  their  individuality  to  the 

1  The  actress  stayed  for  a  short  time  at  the  Queen's  Hotel. 
»  February  27,  1869. 


196     THE   STAGE   LIFE   OF   MRS.   STIRLING 

exigencies  of  such  characters  as  "  Bottom,"  *'  Quince,"  etc.  But 
Mrs.  Stirling  has  arrived  at  that  period  of  life  when  art  is  supreme 
in  the  mind.  .  .  .  Sitting  in  that  immense  room,  it  seemed  to  be 
impossible  that  a  female  voice  could  reach  even  those  seated  midway. 
But  the  first  lines— those  of  "  Theseus  "  to  "  Hippolyta  "—-disposed 
of  that  doubt.  Uttered  in  a  ringing  tone,  proper  to  a  hero-king, 
they  reached  to  the  furthest  extremity  of  the  hall.  Nor  were  the 
softer  accents  of  "  Hippolyta  "  less  audible  ;  nor  the  musical  utter- 
ances of  "  Titania  "  ;  nor  the  dove-like  complainings  of  "  Helena," 
to  say  nothing  of  the  sharper  tones  of  "  Puck,"  and  the  rougher 
voices  of  "  Bully  Bottom  "  and  his  co-mates  of  Athens. 


The  warm  welcome  given  to  this  performance  induced 
Mrs.  Stirling  to  repeat  it  at  St.  James's  Hall,  London, 
April  23,  1869,  the  anniversary  of  Shakespeare's  birthday. 
Defying,  even  before  a  West-End  audience,  the  stage  tradition 
that  the  faculties  of  actor  and  reciter  are  rarely  allied,  the 
actress  proceeded  to  show  her  hearers  that  both  may  be 
blended  in  one  individual.  Her  reception  must  have  recalled 
vividly  to  her  mind — though  perhaps  not  without  a  pang — 
the  days  when,  nearly  a  quarter  of  a  century  before,1  she 
had  often  charmed  London,  as  "  Hermia,"  one  of  her  loveliest 
Shakespearean  impersonations. 

Here  in  St.  James's  Hall,  standing  before  the  orchestra, 
with  a  full  band,  and  a  chorus  of  women  in  the  background, 
she  read  the  abridged  text  of  the  comedy,  without  attempting 
histrionic  action  of  any  kind.  She  seems  to  have  adopted 
an  almost  declamatory  style  throughout,  excepting  only 
in  "Bottom"  the  weaver,  and  in  "  Puck,"  whom  she 
distinguished  from  the  rest  by  a  marked  change  in  voice 
and  manner.  "  Her  delivery,"  says  The  Times  critic, 
44  was  excellent ;  being  equally  notable  for  grace  and  per- 
spicuity." 

During  the  years  immediately  following,  Mrs.  Stirling 
played  very  seldom,  the  only  part  I  have  recorded  being 
44  Mrs.  Candour  " — generally  held  to  be  about  the  richest 
and  ripest  of  her  humorous  impersonations — on  the  occasion 
of  Webster's  Farewell  Benefit  at  Drury  Lane,  on  March  2, 
1874,  and  Buckstone's  Benefit,  at  the  same  theatre,  on 
March  4,  1878.  About  the  mid-seventies,  on  a  date  unknown 

1  1847,  at  the  Princess's. 


THE  ENGLISH  THEATRE  IN  1868          197 

to  me,  she  played  "  Lady  Vavasour,"  to  the  "  Lilian 
Vavasour  "  of  Miss  Ellen  Terry,  in  "  New  Men  and  Old 
Acres  " — the  part  of  "  Lilian  Vavasour  "  being  that  in  which 
Mrs.  Kendal  had  gained  her  first  triumph  at  the  Hay  market, 
in  October,  1867. 


CHAPTER   XVI 

THE  " NURSE"  IN  "ROMEO" 

1879-82 

Mrs.  Stirling  returns  to  the  stage — "  Lady  Bountiful "  in  "  The  Beaux's 
Stratagem  " — Farquhar  as  dramatist — A  short  run — Her  last  speech 
for  the  Dramatic  Sick  Fund,  February  11,  1880 — Accepts  invitation 
from  Henry  Irving  to  play  the  "  Nurse  "  in  "  Romeo  and  Juliet  " 
— Irving's  position  at  the  head  of  our  stage — Her  difficulties  at 
rehearsal — "  Battle  "  with  Miss  Ellen  Terry  over  "  tradition  " — 
Mrs.  Stirling's  complete  success  as  the  "  Nurse  " — Edward  Russell 
and  Miss  Ellen  Terry  upon  her  performance — Percy  Fitzgerald's 
criticism — The  "  undue  prominence  "  of  the  part — Reasons  for  this 
prominence  inherent  in  the  play — Young  lovers  playing  with  an 
old  nurse — Mrs.  Stirling's  peculiar  qualifications  for  the  part — Her 
record,  leading  up  to  it — Value  of  tradition  in  playing  Shakespeare 
— Her  "  Nurse  "  built  up  upon  tradition. 

To  withdraw  from  theatrical  life  is  one  thing :  to  remain 
long  withdrawn  from  it  is  quite  another,  as  many  an  actor 
and  actress  have  discovered  ere  now.  Sooner  or  later,  most 
professionals  find  the  lure  of  the  lime-light  irresistible,  and, 
while  strength  remains,  return  where  their  hearts  still  are. 

So  it  was  with  Mrs.  Stirling,  even  though  nearly  half  a 
century  had  passed  since  her  first  appearance  upon  the 
London  boards.  Whether  it  were  the  music  of  the  name,  a 
handsome  salary,  or  a  now  almost  traditional  love  of  old 
comedy,  that  tempted  her  back,  I  know  not :  but  back 
she  came,  to  play  "Lady  Bountiful,"  in  Miss  Litton's 
production  of  "  The  Beaux's  Stratagem,"  at  the  Imperial 
Theatre,  near  the  Aquarium.  Sentimental  or  loyal  memories, 
perhaps,  may  in  part  also  have  influenced  her  decision, 
since  "  Archer,"  in  that  play,  was  one  of  Macready's  favourite 
characters,  though  I  do  not  know  that  she  herself  had  ever 
taken  part  in  the  comedy  before. 

Be  that  as  it  may,  she  appeared  on  September  22,  1879, 

198 


THE   "NURSE"  IN   "ROMEO"  199 

and  spoke,  in  addition  to  her  part,  a  prologue  written  by 
Clement  Scott,  and  beginning  : 

A  play  by  Farquhar,  gentleman  and  wit ; 
Here  is  the  text  in  honest  Saxon  writ. 

Of  the  four  famous  comic  dramatists  of  the  Restoration, 
Farquhar  is  the  last  in  point  of  time,  and  the  second 
in  point  of  merit.  He  is  more  human,  and  better  humoured, 
than  the  others,  "  making  us  laugh  from  pleasure  oftener 
than  from  malice " — as  Hazlitt  puts  it — genuinely  gay, 
and  never  bitter. 

But,  though  in  a  middle  position  between  the  rank 
indecencies  of  the  Restoration,  and  the  comparative  purity 
of  the  eighteenth  century,  such  a  play  as  "  The  Beaux's 
Stratagem,"  Farquhar's  last  and  best,1  was  still  too  coarse 
for  late  Victorian  taste.  The  production  was  not  a  marked 
success.  Some  of  the  acting,  according  to  The  Times,  was 
very  good,  and  none  of  it  was  positively  bad  ;  but  the  perform- 
ances were  unequal,  neither  the  spirit  of  the  period,  nor  that 
of  the  dramatist,  being  generally  caught.  The  run,  conse- 
quently, was  brief,  and  the  event  interesting  chiefly  as  an 
opportunity  to  the  public  to  welcome,  and  to  the  players 
to  observe  once  again,  a  veteran  actress,  who,  thirty-seven 
years  before,  in  company  with  Laura  Nisbett,  had  won  the 
highest  honours  in  Restoration  comedy,2  just  as — though 
in  a  lesser  degree — she  won  them  again  upon  this  occasion. 
The  most  successful  impersonation  of  the  night,  says  Button 
Cooke,  "  was  Mrs.  Stirling's  4  Lady  Bountiful ' — strictly 
natural,  while  extremely  comical."3 

In  Georgian  comedy  also  she  had  been  recognized,  since 
the  passing  of  Mrs.  Glover,  as  the  first  among  English 
actresses ;  and  the  opening  of  the  Bancroft  season  at  the 
Haymarket,  on  January  31,  1880,  gave  her  an  opportunity 
to  appear  once  more  as  "  Mrs.  Malaprop," 4  which  part 
— to  anticipate  for  a  moment — she  played  again  in  December 

1  Written,   in   sickness,   at   close   of    1706 ;    first  produced   at   Queen's 
Theatre,  Haymarket,  March  8,  1707.     Farquhar  died  April  29  of  that  year. 

2  "  Love  for  Love,"  November  19,  1842,  during  Macready's  second  season 
at  Drury  Lane.     See  pp.  74-5. 

3  Nights  at  the  Play,  ii.  209. 

*  For  her  and  Mrs.  Glover's  rendering  of  "  Mrs.  Malaprop,"  see  ante, 
pp.  119-20. 


200     THE  STAGE  LIFE  OF  MRS.   STIRLING 

1882,    under    Thorne,    at    the    Vaudeville — a    performance 
that  drew  from  Wilkie  Collins  the  following  tribute  : l 

Pray  add  my  thanks  to  Mr.  Thorne  for  his  kindness,  and  my 
congratulations  on  his  admirable  performance  of  "  Acres."  He  and 
Mrs.  Stirling  are  comedians  in  the  highest  and  best  sense  of  the  word. 

Mr.  Ben  Greet  tells  me  that,  about  this  time,  being 
"  behind  "  at  the  Imperial  Theatre,  one  night,  when  the  old 
actress  was  playing  "Mrs.  Malaprop,"  he  was  highly  amused, 
and  a  little  bit  disappointed,  at  seeing  her  applauding  herself 
loudly,  as  she  came  off  the  stage  with  "  Sir  Anthony  Abso- 
lute " — who  was  Mr.  Farren.  She  insisted  on  dragging  him 
back  on  to  the  stage,  to  take  a  call ;  but  he  "  did  not  like 
it  all,  thought  it  most  inartistic ;  and  they  almost  came  to 
friendly  blows  over  it.  It  made  a  great  impression  upon 
me  in  my  apprentice  days."  To-day  Mr.  Greet  probably 
regards  Mrs.  Stirling's  self- appreciation  as  nothing  worse 
than  the  attempt  of  a  veteran  actress  to  administer  to 
herself  much  needed  encouragement. 

Active  though  she  still  was,  one  by  one  her  links  with  the 
past  were  being  loosened.  On  Ash  Wednesday,  February  11, 
1880,  at  Willis's  Rooms,  King  Street,  St.  James's,  she 
made  the  last  of  a  long  series  of  brilliant  speeches,  that, 
with  only  an  occasional  absence,  due  to  sickness,  she  had 
delivered  on  behalf  of  the  Dramatic  and  Musical  Sick  Fund, 
since  1862.  Her  words  had  given  delight  to  many  hearers, 
and  had  been  the  means  of  gathering  many  thousands  of 
pounds  for  the  charity.  This  closing  effort  is  characterized 
by  all  the  old  mental  alertness  and  allusiveness,  all  the  wit, 
humour,  word-play,  pathos,  and  daring  of  the  old  days ; 
nor  can  one  say  for  how  many  years  longer  she  might  have 
gone  on,  had  the  Institution  survived.  The  year  1880, 
however,  seems  to  have  been  its  last,  perhaps  for  the  reason, 
among  others,  that  the  Royal  General  Theatrical  Fund 
was  fast  taking  the  premier  place.  Her  last  petition,  made 
under  the  presidency  of  Henry  Ranee,  Mayor  of  Cambridge, 
was  thus: 

Mr.  Chairman,  Ladies  and  Gentlemen, — Though  Christmas  time 
be  over,  and  the  Pantomimes  put  to  bed,  with  the  help,  I  suppose, 

1  Letter  to  Mr,  W.  Archer,  May  5,  1882. 


THE   " NURSE"   IN   "ROMEO"  201 

of  Clown's  warming-pan  and  Pantaloon's  hot  poker,  we  are  still 
in  the  region  of  transformation  scenes.  There,  on  one  side  of  me, 
is  the  old  Haymarket  play-house,  beloved  by  the  oldest  inhabitant, 
turned  into  a  new  Haymarket.  Its  old  face  re-made  up,  its  inside 
turned  inside  out,  its  pit  drawn  off  into  the  upper  boxes,  its  new 
Management,  with  its  old  partner  prosperity  at  the  helm.  And  here, 
at  my  elbow,  is  the  St.  James's,  a  name  that  has  long  spelled  loss, 
but  now  spells  profit,  with  its  "  Hare  and  many  friends,"  no  fable, 
but  a  fact,  laying  the  British  public  under  contribution,  like  Falstaff, 
"  in  company  with  two  knaves  in  Kendal  green "  ;  its  venerable 
hall,  lobby,  and  crush-room,  which  I  remember  musty  and  damp 
enough  to  suggest  the  appropriate  rhyme  of  "  mush-room,"  all  in 
the  freshest  flower  of  high  aesthetic  decoration,  furnished  like  a 
drawing-room,  and  hung  like  a  picture  gallery. 

We  used,  in  the  old  days,  to  be  satisfied  with  tableaux  on  the 
stage,  and  glad  to  get  them  ;  two  chairs  and  a  deal  table  was  the 
extent  of  our  set  in  that  pre-aesthetic  period ;  now  its  management, 
calling  a  poet-laureate  to  its  boards,  and  flying  not  "  kites "  but 
"  falcons,"  and  with  "  the  Queen's  shilling  "  enlisting  all  London  in 
the  St.  James's  Rifle  Corps.  Ah !  if  I  could  only  be  made  young 
again,  like  the  Haymarket,  and  the  St.  James's.  Alas  !  it  is  not 
so  easy  to  put  a  new  face  upon  the  player  as  upon  the  play-house. 
If  I  could  change,  no,  I  won't  say  change  my  bill  for  this  evening, 
for  that  must  still  be,  like  the  Bancroft's  "  Money,"  your  money  for 
this  charity.  Great  is  the  power  of  speech,  given  the  right  "  stump." 
Look  at  Mr.  Gladstone  ;  he  draws,  not  the  "  stumpy,"  but,  at  least, 
equivalents  in  kind,  new  rigs-out,  from  silk  hats  to  shepherd's-plaid 
unmentionables — the  only  cheques  Scotland  seems  to  have  for  him. 
By-the-bye,  I  don't  find,  somehow,  that  my  eloquence  helps  to  find 
me  in  frocks — I  like  that  word,  it  has  such  a  youthful  ring  about  it 
— and  hats.  Oh  !  I  should  like  to  see  myself  in  a  beautiful,  broad- 
brimmed,  fluffy  hat,  that  I  might  sing  or  say 

I've  been  photographed  like  this, 
I've  been  photographed  like  that, 
I've  been  photographed  so  youthful 
In  a  lovely  fluffy  hat. 

But,  never  mind  :  though  I  don't  work  up  to  a  wardrobe,  or  even 
have  my  shepherd's  plaid  pattern,  like  Mr.  Gladstone,  I  can  do  with- 
out my  own  cheques  if  only  I  can  work  you  out  of  yours.  But,  if 
I  cannot  succeed  by  fluency,  a  la  Gladstone,  perhaps  I  may  be  more 
successful,  by  condensation,  a  la  Beaconsfield.  Look  what  his 
Liebig's  essence  of  policy,  his  concentrated  champagne-jelly,  which, 
we  are  told,  he  likes  himself,  and  which  he  certainly  administers  to 
the  public,  his  "  peace  with  honour,"  his  "  scientific  frontier,"  his 
"  irrepressible  chatter  of  irresponsible  verbosity,"  have  brought  him  ! 
My  stars  and  garters !  Looking  up  to  the  sublime  heights  at  which 


202     THE   STAGE  LIFE  OF  MRS.  STIRLING 

he  soars,  one  feels  fairly  "  dizzy."  If  I  could  spin  phrases  like  him, 
to  what  a  figure  might  I  not  raise  myself,  or,  what  I  value  more, 
to-night's  subscription  list !  And  then  to  think  that,  besides  the 
gold  I  should  put  into  Mr.  Auron's  pocket — I  beg  his  pardon,  I  mean 
the  Fund's — I  might  bring  some  of  the  gold  to  my  own  brows,  in  the 
shape  of  a  nice  "  people's  tribute  "  of  my  own  ;  they  must  be  nice 
people  to  contribute  to  such  a  purpose.  But  alas  !  as  Agamemnon 
wanted  his  Homer,  I  must  wait  for  my  Tracy  Turnerelli.  If  he 
is  in  this  room,  and  hears  me,  or  if  anybody  here  knows  where  he 
is  to  be  found,  and  will  kindly  communicate  with  him,  let  him  be 
assured  that  when  he  does  offer  me  my  wreath,  it  will  be  accepted. 
I  will  not  send  it  to  Madame  Tussauds.  But,  in  the  meantime,  I 
will  take  out  the  gold  of  my  wreath  in  the  shape  of  your  contribution 
to  this  charity.  When  our  new  Dramatic  School,  in  the  leading 
strings  of  Professor  Morley,  is  in  full  swing,  let  us  hope  that  the 
poverty  and  suffering  which  this  fund  is  founded  to  relieve  will  be 
less  of  a  constant  quantity.  Of  course,  in  that  blessed  time,  when 
nobody  shall  make  mistakes,  and  everybody  shall  know  his  or  her 
vocation,  and  be  taught  to  follow  it,  we  may  hope,  even  without  the 
active  exertions  of  the  Church  and  Stage  Guild,  that  the  Theatre  will 
be  a  region  of  gifted  artists,  all  receiving  large  salaries,  and  all  deserv- 
ing them ;  all  respectable,  aesthetic,  cultivated,  and  provident ;  in 
short,  artists  worthy  of  the  Theatre  of  that  blessed  world  of  Cockayne, 
where  the  larks  rain  down  ready-roasted,  and  crying  "  come  eat  me." 
But,  while  waiting  for  this  consummation,  devoutly  to  be  wished, 
if  not  confidently  anticipated,  we  have  still  our  old  ravel  of  suffering 
and  poverty  to  knit  up  in  the  sleeves  of  the  stage-wardrobe  ;  still 
the  grim  old  need  to  meet,  the  hungry  mouths  to  fill ;  the  wounds 
of  a  hard  and  bitter  battle  of  life  to  staunch  and  bind.  Our  charity 
craves  ever,  with  many  open  mouths.  I  crave,  with  my  poor  mouth, 
on  its  behalf  to-night,  as  on  this  same  Ash  Wednesday  night  these 
twenty  years  and  more.  One  doesn't  like  to  look  back,  but  I  am 
afraid  'tis  past  a  score  ;  but  after  all  there  is  little  perhaps  in  their 
record  that  I  may  be  gladder  to  look  back  on.  I  am,  I  believe  with 
my  old  friend  John  Ryder,  of  about  the  oldest  dramatic  school  going. 
I  know  that,  in  these  days  of  School  Boards,  "  dames  "  schools  are 
apt  to  be  very  lightly  valued  ;  but  at  all  events  he  and  I  may  claim 
to  have  educated  our  fair  proportion  of  the  rising  talent  of  the  pro- 
fession ;  and  if  it  is  our  rising  talent  that  makes  the  theatrical 
horizon  so  bright  and  promising,  who  but  the  old  school  is  to  thank 
for  it  ?  But  there  is  one  dramatic  school  even  older  than  mine,  and 
that  is  the  school  in  which  actors,  and  actresses,  have  learned  the 
blessed  lesson  of  charity  and  mutual  kindness.  It  may  be  a  hard 
school ;  but  it  has  turned  out  apt  pupils,  who  have  learnt  its  lessons 
well,  and  zealously  put  them  to  the  proof  by  practice.  May  the  new 
Dramatic  School,  when  it  comes,  be  as  justified  of  its  pupils.  One 
fortunate  feature  of  the  Theatre,  in  our  times,  is  the  countenance 
granted  to  it  by  our  Royal  Family.  O  !  good  gracious,  a  thought 


THE   "  NURSE"   IN   "  ROMEO  "  203 

strikes  me — not  a  happy  thought  by  any  means !  If  that  counten- 
ance, as  it  beams  on  us  from  the  royal  box,  should  ever  have  a  foul 
anchor  in  blue  on  its  august  nose  or  noses !  On  this  point  of  the  royal 
nasal  promontory,  I  pause  ;  words  cannot  carry  me  further ;  I  will 
only  say,  stifle  your  emotions,  and  take  out  your  pocket-handker- 
chiefs, and  while  doing  so  take  out  your  purses  too.  It  would  be 
unseemly,  if  not  disloyal,  in  the  case  of  a  profession  Royalty  has  so 
honoured  with  its  favour,  to  allow  its  distresses  to  go  unrelieved,  if 
I  may  be  allowed  the  expression,  under  the  royal  nose  ;  so  let  me 
as  "  dashing  white  Sergeant "  beat  up  my  call  for  your  contributions. 
How  could  I  better  finish  the  roll  of  my  drum  to-night,  than  with 
the  royal  tattoo  ? 


After  many  years  of  retirement  from  public  life,  Mrs. 
Stirling,  we  may  suppose,  did  not  contemplate  much  more 
active  stage-work,  and  would  probably  have  declined  all 
offers,  had  not  the  glamour  of  a  Shakespearean  regime  at  the 
Lyceum,  and  the  personal  petition  of  Henry  Irving,  overcome 
her  irresolutions,  and  lured  her  back  to  the  boards  once  more. 

The  occasion  was  the  production  of  "  Romeo  and  Juliet," 
the  opportunity  that  of  playing  the  "  Nurse,"  a  part  which 
she  had  never  before  attempted.  Mrs.  Stirling  consented 
to  undertake  the  character,  and  it  was  well  for  her,  as  for 
the  play-going  public,  that  she  did  so.  Already  Henry 
Irving  at  the  Lyceum,  by  common  consent,  and  with  public 
acclamation,  had  won  the  place  to  which,  since  Macready, 
no  English  actor  had  ever  boldly  aspired,  or  laid  legitimate 
claim — that  of  the  acknowledged  Trustee  and  representative 
of  the  ancient  traditions  of  our  British  stage,  in  its  national 
and  poetical  aspects.  In  Miss  Ellen  Terry,  moreover, 
Irving  had  found,  for  his  leading  lady,  a  worthy  collaborator, 
an  artist  of  rare  and  distinctive  ability,  and  a  personality 
of  extraordinary  charm.  It  was  fitting  that  he  should  com- 
plete his  company  by  the  acquisition  of  an  actress  who 
had  played  "  Cordelia  "  to  Macready's  "  Lear,"  and  "  Desde- 
mona  "  to  his  "  Othello,"  and  who  now,  in  the  maturity 
and  ripeness  of  her  age  and  art,  was  to  put  all  she  had 
learned — and  it  was  much — of  Shakespeare's  wide  humanity 
and  woman's  universal  motherhood,  into  the  part  of  Juliet's 
"  Nurse." 

New  rdles  and  new  lines,  however,  are  less  easily  acquired 


204     THE  STAGE  LIFE  OF  MRS.  STIRLING 

at  sixty-nine  than  they  may  have  been  thirty  years  before ; 
and  the  old  lady  found  some  difficulty,  it  seems,  in  adapting 
herself  readily  to  more  modern  conditions.  Harking  back, 
as  she  did,  in  memory  and  affection,  to  the  primitive 
methods  in  vogue  before  the  stage  carpenters  and  electricians 
wielded  the  dominion  that  is  now  theirs,  she  disliked  the 
elaborate  settings  and  cumbersome  scenery  of  the  Lyceum 
stage  in  the  eighties. 

That  she  found  the  rehearsals  inadequate,  Miss  Terry 
has  told  us.1  " '  O  these  modern  ways,'  Mrs.  Stirling  used 
to  say.  '  We  never  have  any  rehearsals  at  all.  How  am 
I  going  to  play  the  "  Nurse  "  ?  J  " 

Then  again,  over  traditional  renderings,  the  old  actress, 
who  had  been  nourished  almost  upon  tradition — warred 
occasionally  with  the  younger  school.  Let  Miss  Terry, 
the  "  Juliet "  of  the  play,  continue  the  story. 

I  had  one  battle  with  Mrs.  Stirling  over  "  tradition  ".  It  was 
in  the  scenej2  beginning 

The  clock  struck  nine  when  I  did  send  the  nurse  t 
In  half  an  hour  she  promised  to  return ! 

Tradition  said  that  "  Juliet "  must  go  on  coquetting  and  clicking 
over  the  "  Nurse ?J  to  get  the  news  of  "  Romeo  "  out  of  her.  Tradition 
said  that  "  Juliet "  must  give  imitations  of  the  "Nurse"  on  the  line, 
"  Where's  your  mother  ?  "  in  order  to  get  that  cheap  reward,  "  a 
safe  laugh."  I  felt  that  it  was  wrong.  I  felt  that  "Juliet"  was 
angry  with  the  "Nurse."  Each  time  she  delayed  in  answering  I  lost 
my  temper,  with  genuine  passion.  At  "  Where's  your  mother  ? " 
I  spoke  with  indignation,  rage  and  tears.  We  were  a  long  time 
coaxing  Mrs.  Stirling  to  let  the  scene  be  played  on  these  lines,  but 
that  is  how  it  was  played  eventually. 

Granting  the  fidelity  of  Miss  Terry's  rendering  of  the 
scene,  and  having  admitted,  without  reserve,  that  when 
that  lady  has  made  up  her  mind  to  coax  someone,  that 
someone  may  as  well  surrender  soon  as  late — unless  for  the 
purpose  of  drawing  out  a  delight — I  venture  to  uphold, 
in  general,  Mrs.  Stirling's  desire  to  stand  resolutely  for 
tradition,  since  upon  ancient  tradition  the  fabric  of  Shake- 
spearean acting  is  assuredly  built  up.  Upon  that  subject  I 

1  Ellen  Terry's  Memoirs,  pp.  210,  et  seq. 
8  Act  II,  Scene  5. 


THE   "  NURSE"  IN   "ROMEO"  205 

will  say  more  later,  and  do  but  mention  it  now  to  complete 
the  picture  of  her  last  important  Shakespearean  r61e,  and  the 
little  difficulties  she  met  with  in  preparing  for  it.  All  those 
difficulties  —  moving  scenery,  limited  rehearsals,  modern 
readings — were  triumphantly  overcome,  and  the  old  actress 
crowned  her  long  career  with  a  complete  and  unequivocal 
success.  Of  the  praises  bestowed  upon  her,  none,  I  think, 
were  more  to  the  point  than  this,  by  Edward  R.  Russell, 
in  an  article  on  the  dramatic  revival,  in  Macmillari's 
Magazine : l 

This  is  the  proper  place  to  pay  a  brief  tribute  to  the  "  Nurse 1J  of  Mrs. 
Stirling,  which  is  a  wonderful  piece  of  elaborate  and  unctuous  acting. 
Such  perfection  of  mechanism  is  rarely  seen.  Every  muscle,  every 
expression,  every  syllable  of  the  mellow  voice  is  obedient  to  the  will 
of  the  artist,  and  the  result  is  that  one  of  the  most  amusing,  natural, 
and  irresistible  old  women  ever  imagined  lives  before  you,  treads  the 
stage,  and  asserts  a  phenomenal  importance  in  the  action  of  the  play. 

Miss  Terry  herself  has  written  of  the  performance: 

She  played  it  splendidly — indeed,  she  as  the  "  Nurse  "  and  old 
Tom  Mead  as  the  "  Apothecary  " — the  two  "  old  'uns " — romped 
away  with  chief  honours,  had  the  play  all  to  nothing.  .  .  .  She  was 
the  only  "  Nurse  "  that  I  have  ever  seen  who  did  not  play  the  part 
like  a  female  pantaloon.  She  did  not  assume  any  great  decrepitude. 
In  the  cords  scene,  where  the  "  Nurse  "  tells  "  Juliet "  of  the  death 
of  "  Paris,"  she  did  not  play  for  comedy  at  all,  but  was  very  emotional. 
Her  parrot  scream  when  she  found  me  dead  was  horribly  real  and 
effective.  .  .  .  When  she  played  the  "  Nurse  "  at  the  Lyceum,  her 
voice  had  become  a  little  jangled  and  harsh,  but  her  eye  was  still 
bright,  and  her  art  had  not  abated — not  one  little  bit !  nor  had  her 
charm.  Her  smile  was  the  most  fascinating,  irresistible  thing 
imaginable. 

With  the  last  sentence  of  that  vivid  sketch  all  will  concur 
who,  though  not  having  seen  the  original,  may  know  the 
familiar  portrait  of  Mrs.  Stirling  as  the  "  Nurse,"  with  Miss 
Mary  Anderson  as  "Juliet."2  Her  humour,  in  that  picture, 
has  about  it  a  rich,  generous,  satisfying  quality,  like  a  comedy 
of  Shakespeare,  the  flavour  of  an  old  vintage  port,  or  a  chapter 
of  George  Meredith. 

Miss  Terry's  frank  admission  that  Mrs.  Stirling  and  Tom 

1  Vol.  xlvi,  1882.  a  See  Frontispiece. 


20G     THE   STAGE  LIFE   OF   MRS.   STIRLING 

Mead  "  had  the  play  all  to  nothing  "  is  borne  out  by  the 
other  critics,  so  far  as  the  "  Nurse "  is  concerned.  The 
Era  l  gives  first  place  among  the  ladies  to  Mrs.  Stirling ; 
and  Percy  Fitzgerald,  in  his  book  upon  Henry  Irving  at 
the  Lyceum,2  and  telling  the  same  tale  of  the  "  Nurse's  " 
pre-eminence,  raises  an  interesting  point. 

Terriss  was  the  "  Mercutio,"  which  he  gave  with  his  favourite 
blunt  impetuosity.  But  one  of  the  most  perfectly  played  characters 
was  Mrs.  Stirling's  "  Nurse."  This  accomplished  woman  represented 
all  the  best  traditions — high  training,  admirable  elocution,  with  the 
art  of  giving  due  weight  and  breadth  to  every  utterance.  And  yet 
here  was  a  curious  phenomenon.  The  very  excellence  of  the  delinea- 
tion disturbed  the  balance  of  the  play.  The  "  Nurse  "  became  almost 
as  important  as  the  leading  performers,  but  not  from  any  fault  of  the 
actress.  She  but  followed  the  due  course.  .  .  .  But  there  should  be 
subordination.  .  .  .  With  an  actress  of  Mrs.  Stirling's  powers  and 
rank  the  manager,  no  doubt,  felt  too  much  delicacy  to  interfere  ; 
nor  perhaps  would  the  audience  have  placidly  accepted  any  effacing 
of  her  part.  But  as  it  was,  the  figure  of  this  humble  retainer  became 
unduly  prominent. 

The  problem  is  one  that,  out  of  the  very  nature  of  the 
play,  must  sometimes  arise  in  productions  of  "  Romeo 
and  Juliet."  We  saw  an  example  of  it  not  long  ago,  at 
the  Lyric,  when,  curiously  enough,  Miss  Ellen  Terry  herself, 
as  the  "Nurse,"  by  reason  of  those  same  gifts — her  elocution, 
her  temperamental  qualities,  and  her  matured  stage  technique 
— was  able,  in  her  turn,  to  do  as  had  been  done  long  since 
unto  her,  and  to  have  most  of  the  other  players,  excepting 
only  "  Mercutio,"  3  "  all  to  nothing." 

The  reasons  for  such  happenings  are  to  be  found,  of 
course,  in  the  difficulties  that  attend  the  playing  of  the 
title  parts  in  "  Romeo  and  Juliet " — difficulties  so  great 
that  not  one  actor  nor  actress  in  a  hundred  can  completely 
overcome  them.  The  young  "  Juliet "  who  may  reveal 
the  beauties  of  that  exquisitely  lyrical  opening,  cannot 
always  sustain  the  swiftly  moving  emotions  of  the  southern 
maid,  nor  rise  to  the  tragic  intensity  of  the  death- visions  and 
the  potioned  cup.  By  the  time  that  she  is  mature  enough 

1  March  11,  1882. 

8  Henry  Irving :    Twenty  Years  at  the  Lyceum.     1893. 

8  Mr.  Leo  Quartermaine. 


THE   "  NURSE"   IN   "  ROMEO  "  207 

for  the  one,  she  is  already  too  old  to  look  or  to  feel  the  other. 
There  is  the  eternal  tragedy  of  "  Juliet,"  of  the  actress's 
art  in  general  we  might  almost  say.  And  with  "  Romeo  " 
the  difficulty  is  similar :  he  also  must  be  both  boy  and  man. 

Then,  beside  these  two  young  lovers — at  the  very  moment 
when  their  youthful  incompleteness  and  technical  in- 
efficiencies are  perhaps  being  revealed  to  the  audience — 
comes  this  benignantly  conceived  personality  of  the  "  Nurse," 
into  whom  Shakespeare  has  wrought  his  tenderest  love, 
his  ripest  humour,  his  deepest  sense  of  woman's  sublime 
and  universal  motherhood ; — a  character  to  be  played, 
necessarily,  by  a  well-matured  actress,  in  whom  years,  no 
longer  a  fault,  have  become  an  essential  virtue.  What 
wonder,  then,  that,  too  often,  the  "Nurse"  usurps  more 
than  a  mere  retainer's  share  of  the  audience's  sympathy  and 
attention,  since  in  all  the  beautiful  art  of  the  stage  there  is 
nothing  more  delightfully  restful  and  pleasing,  to  an  under- 
standing play -goer,  than  to  see  a  broadly  maternal  part 
played  by  an  actress,  with  all  the  perfect  ease  and  unerring 
certainty  that  only  decades  of  experience  can  give  ? 

The  foregoing  facts  apply,  in  principle,  to  every  nurse 
in  stage  history ;  but  Mrs.  Stirling's  case,  nevertheless, 
was  quite  exceptional,  when  it  is  remembered  that  she 
was  playing  to  a  "  Romeo  "  and  "  Juliet "  who  were  the 
leading  actor  and  actress  of  their  day,  appearing  in  one 
of  the  notable  revivals  of  the  century.  Granted  that  the 
lovers  of  Verona  were  not  parts  peculiarly  suited  to  the 
genius  of  Henry  Irving,  or  of  Miss  Ellen  Terry,  the  quali- 
fications of  this  "  Nurse  "  were  still  superlative. 

Naturally  a  woman  of  keen  intelligence,  and  of  strong 
understanding,  endowed  with  an  intense  and  ardent  nature, 
an  abounding  sense  of  humour,  and  a  deep  love  of  art,  she 
brought  also  inevitably  to  the  part  a  range  of  experience 
that  almost  no  actress,  of  any  time,  could  match.  For 
over  forty  years  she  had  maintained  her  position  as  one 
of  England's  leading  performers ;  and  for  thirty  years  her 
supremacy  had  been  unchallenged,  as  the  first  comedienne 
of  her  day.  Farce,  comedy,  drama,  tragedy — all  had  come 
alike  to  her.  She  had  played  many  times  "  Cordelia," 
44  Desdemona,"  "Rosalind,"  "Portia,5!  and  the  other 


208     THE   STAGE  LIFE   OF  MRS.  STIRLING 

Shakespearean  heroines.  In  "  Adrienne  Lecouvreur,"  and 
in  "  Tisbe,"  she  had  touched  the  hem  of  Rachel's  garment  ; 
she  had  transformed  bad  plays  into  good  ones,  and  artificial 
roles  innumerable  into  almost  as  many  living  creations. 
And  now,  at  last,  though  with  "  voice  a  little  jangled,"  but 
with  her  art  not  one  wit  abated,  and  all  her  energies  yet 
intact — aged,  but  not  old — there  had  come  to  her  the 
opportunity  to  personate  this  ancient  retainer,  into  whom 
Shakespeare  had  breathed  something  of  his  broadest,  sweetest, 
and  tenderest  sympathies  about  the  heart-compelling 
motherhood  of  woman.  What  more  natural  than  that 
Mrs.  Stirling  should  see  here  a  last  worthy  occasion  ;  should 
fasten  upon  it,  and — even  to  undue  prominence — make  that 
character  the  one  in  which  she  should  carry  down  to  posterity 
her  share  in  our  loftiest  dramatic  tradition. 

Tradition,  as  Sir  Frank  Benson  well  reminded  me  recently, 
is  of  vital  importance  in  the  playing  of  Shakespeare.1  It  is 
the  essential  thought  of  his  time,  the  torch  of  dramatic 
learning  and  authority  handed  down  from  stage  to  stage, 
from  actor  to  actor,  linking  and  unifying,  across  the  centuries, 
the  great  arts  of  the  dramatist  and  his  interpreters.  Some 
players — and  Mrs.  Stirling  was  one  of  these — can  handle 
such  tradition  marvellously  well,  can  let  it  come  to  them, 
penetrate  them,  permeate  them,  and  shine  through  their 
personalities,  as  Garrick  did,  and  after  him  some  of  those 
mellow  actors  of  the  old  school,  such  as  Howe — to  name 
but  one.  Others  have  harder  work  with  this  living  light 
from  the  past — as  Kemble  had,  and  Henry  Irving.  They 
must  go  out  to  meet  it,  must  parley  with  it — not  always 
easily — before  they  can  open  to  it  their  hearts,  and  warm 
themselves,  at  last,  in  its  beams. 

Upon  that  great  Shakespearean  tradition  Mrs.  Stirling's 
"  Nurse "  was  built  up.  She  moulded  it  into  her  own 
personality,  carrying  it  on,  adapting  and  enlarging  it,  into 
the  perfect  "  Nurse  "  that  will  go  down  to  posterity  as  the 
model.  To  few  only  is  it  given  to  do  such  things.  Who 
would  play  Shakespeare  worthily  must  have  something 
of  his  greatness,  fortified  by  natural  gift,  and  perfected  by 

1  Sir  Frank  Benson  made  his  first  professional  appearance  as  "  Paris  "  in 
this  production,  for  which  see  his  preface  to  this  book. 


THE   "NURSE"   IN  "  ROMEO  "  209 

long  initiation.  He,  or  she,  must  bring  to  such  work  love  and 
sympathy  past  telling,  and  high  nobility  of  soul :  they 
must  make,  at  the  same  time,  all  needful  sacrifice,  before 
they  can  become  the  chosen  vessel,  and  the  child  of  the 
larger  life,  understanding  the  divinity  of  man,  understanding 
also  the  Deity  of  God.  Only  thus,  and  only  then,  in  the 
measure  of  that  understanding,  will  he,  or  will  she,  succeed. 


14 


CHAPTER    XVII 

LAST    APPEARANCES,    RETIREMENT   AND 

DEATH 

1883-95 

Mrs.  Stirling  plays  "  The  Marquise,"  in  the  Bancrofts'  revival  of  "  Caste  " 
at  the  Haymarket — A  new  rendering  of  the  part—Her  struggle 
against  physical  disabilities — "  Lady  Caryll  "  in  Pinero's  "  Lords 
and  Commons  " — Her  last  original  part — The  "  Nurse  "  again,  with 
Miss  Mary  Anderson — Miss  Anderson's  recollections  of  her,  and 
Mr.  Ben  Greet's — Charity  matinees — Retirement  of  the  Bancrofts — 
Is  persuaded  to  play  "  Martha  '*  in  Henry  Irving's  production  of 
"Faust,"  at  the  Lyceum — A  fine  scene  with  "  Mephistopheles  " — 
Failure  of  her  sight — Miss  Ellen  Terry's  story  of  Mrs.  Stirling  as 
"  Martha " — Plays  for  the  last  time  on  July  31,  1886 — Irving's 
speech  thereon — Her  final  withdrawal — Spiritual  troubles — Intimate 
correspondence  with  Miss  Anderson — Marriage  with  Sir  Charles 
Gregory — Last  days,  and  death,  December  28,  1895. 

MRS.  STIRLING'S  success  as  the  "Nurse"  naturally  brought 
other  actor  managers  to  realize  that  the  veteran  actress 
was  not  yet  a  spent  force.  The  Bancrofts,  at  the  Hay- 
market,  were  contemplating  a  revival  of  "  Caste,"  that 
most  tender  and  human  of  the  Robertson  comedies,  first 
produced  on  April  6,  1867.  The  revival  which  commenced 
on  January  21,  1883,  was  quite  as  successful  as  productions 
under  that  management  usually  were, — and  that  is  saying 
much — Mrs.  Bancroft  herself,  as  "Polly,"  being  once  more 
the  life  of  the  piece,  and  David  James,  as  "  Eccles,"  giving 
one  of  the  most  convincing  studies  of  drunkenness  recorded 
in  the  history  of  the  stage. 

But,  in  the  Bancrofts'  own  words,  these  performances  of 
"  Caste  "  were  chiefly  memorable  to  them 

by  the  sincere  pleasure  we  had  in  persuading  that  perfect  mistress  of 
her  art,  Mrs.  Stirling,  to  play  the  "Marquise  de  St.  Maiir,"  which 
proved  of  infinite  value,  and  whose  influence  at  the  rehearsals — owing 
to  the  unwearying  pains  she  put  into  them — was  also  of  good  effect.1 
1  The  Bancroft  Meinoirs,  p.  250. 

210 


LAST  APPEARANCES  211 

Some  critics  had  predicted  failure  for  her.  Mrs.  Stirling, 
they  thought,  could  never  subordinate  her  grand  style, 
and  old  English  traditions,  to  the  minutiae  of  Robertsonian 
comedy.  They  were  wrong.  The  old  lady  vindicated 
completely  her  selection,  and  deserved,  as  well  as  earned, 
her  considerable  salary — seven  times  larger  than  that  paid 
to  the  original  representative  of  the  "  Marquise."  Her  broad 
humanity  enabled  her  to  put  enough  of  the  mother  into 
the  high-born  woman,  just  as  she  had  put  it  into  the  "  Nurse  " 
— and  so  to  tone  down  towards  acceptance  the  aristocratic 
snobbishness  of  the  consequential  "Marquise,"  whose  exit 
most  audiences  receive  with  undisguised  pleasure,  when 
"  Esther  Eccles  "  opens  the  door.  One  critic *  opined  that 
the  part  of  the  "  Marquise  de  St.  Maur"  had  never  been 
thoroughly  understood  until  Mrs.  Stirling  took  it  up;  and 
Squire  Bancroft  himself  wrote  : 2 

We  were  fortunate  enough  to  persuade  that  great  actress,  Mrs. 
Stirling,  to  appear  as  the  "  Marquise."  She  played  the  part  as  it 
had  never  been  acted  ;  the  tones  of  her  grand  voice  still  linger  in  the 
memory,  as  she  said  to  her  son  :  "  I  may  never  see  you  again.  I  am 
old,  you  are  going  into  the  battle," 

Back  again  in  the  melee,  she  was  still  undaunted,  though 
the  effort  taxed  even  her  resolute  determination,  as  this 
further  extract  from  the  Bancroft  Memoirs  makes  clear: 

I  have  known  that  grand  old  actress,  Mrs.  Stirling,  when  suffering 
from  a  severe  attack  of  bronchitis,  to  go  to  the  theatre  in  all  weathers, 
and  at  great  risk,  more  especially  at  her  age,  when  she  ought  to  have 
been  in  bed.  I  have  seen  her  arrive  scarcely  able  to  breathe,  but 
insisting  on  going  through  her  duties.  This  has  often  been  an  anxiety, 
for  while  admiring  her  courage,  I  have  feared  bad  results  from  it. 
Mrs.  Stirling's  sight  being  impaired,  she  always  dreaded  stairs,  and, 
unfortunately  for  her,  in  the  hall  of  Caryll  Court  there  was  a  long 
gallery  and  then  a  tall  flight  of  steps  leading  from  it  to  the  stage, 
while  behind  the  scenes  there  was  another  flight,  to  reach  this  gallery. 
Luckily,  she  did  not  enter  alone,  but  had  the  kindly  help  of  Miss 
Eleanor  Calhoun,  who  played  her  daughter  in  the  piece.  When  Mrs. 
Stirling  was  ill,  these  stairs  would  naturally  be  a  double  anxiety, 
but  she  would  listen  to  no  change  of  entrance  in  the  scene  which  might 
affect  the  arrangement  of  the  play,  and  I  often  felt  anxious  about  her. 

One  would  imagine,  to  see  her  slowly  and  cautiously  ascend  the 

1  Daily  Telegraph,  January  22,  1883.  8  The  Bancrofts,  p.  110. 


212     THE  STAGE  LIFE   OF  MRS.   STIRLING 

flight  of  steps,  stopping  every  now  and  then  to  murmur  "  O  !  these 
stairs  ! "  that  she  would  scarcely  be  able  to  get  through  her  part ; 
but  although  she  has  stood  gasping  for  breath,  and  terribly  ailing, 
the  moment  her  cue  came  to  go  on  the  stage  she  seemed  to  become 
twenty  years  younger  ;  vigour  returned  to  her  limbs,  and  she  walked 
with  such  a  firm  and  stately  gait  that  the  change  was  extraordinary. 
Her  grand  voice  alone  was  worth  a  good  walk  to  listen  to,  and  her 
acting  of  the  part  was  as  no  one  else  could  act  it. 

"  Never,"  commented  Sir  Squire  Bancroft,  "  will  a  true 
artist  break  faith  with  the  public,  while  able  to  stand  or 
speak." 

On  November  24,  1883,  despite  the  handicap  of  increasing 
physical  disabilities,  the  actress  undertook  what  proved 
to  be  her  last  original  part,  "  Lady  Gary  11,"  in  Pinero's 
comedy,  "  Lords  and  Commons  " — a  performance  interesting 
chiefly  because  it  links  up  her  stage  career  with  a  great 
and  still  active  dramatist,  and  with  a  living  generation 
of  players.  The  Bancrofts,  Mrs.  Bernard  Beere,  Johnston 
Forbes-Robertson  were  all  in  the  cast  of  a  play,  which,  though 
it  ran  for  some  eighty  nights,  was  generally  reckoned  a 
failure.  Sir  Arthur  Pinero  had  not  then  come  fully  into 
his  own  as  a  playwright :  his  rendering  of  that  popular 
theme,  "  New  Men  and  Old  Acres,"  was  technically  immature, 
and  rather  too  cynical,  perhaps,  to  win  much  popular  favour. 
The  Times  was  severe  upon  it: 

Mr.  Pinero  has  yet  to  learn,  it  would  seem,  one  of  the  elementary 
principles  of  his  art,  which  is  that  the  sympathies  of  the  house  must 
never  be  trifled  with,  that  a  dramatist — mystify  his  characters  as 
he  may — must  never  mystify  his  audience. 

As  for  Mrs.  Stirling,  she,  in  the  role  of  an  aristocratic 
dowager,  struggled  along  as  best  she  might,  generally  able, 
by  her  indomitable  determination,  to  concealfrom  observers 
in  front  the  fact  that  the  practice  of  her  art  was  now  an  effort. 
It  was  concerning  her  appearance  in  this  play  that  the 
Bancrofts  wrote  : 

It  would  be  very  interesting  to  an  audience  to  be  given,  now  and 
then,  a  peep  behind  the  scenes,  or  in  the  Green  Room  ;  they  would 
often  see  what  good  servants  to  the  public  are  the  actors  ;  how  often, 
when  suffering  acute  pain,  they  have  gone  through  their  work  so 


LAST  APPEARANCES  218 

bravely  that  the  audience  has  not  detected  even  a  look  of  it.  The 
public  owe  more  to  the  actor  than  they  will  perhaps  be  prepared 
to  admit. 

Not  long  after  the  termination  of  the  run  of  "  Lords 
and  Commons,"  Mrs.  Stirling  presented  to  Mrs.  Pinero  the 
stick  she  had  used  as  the  "  Nurse  "  in  Irving's  production 
of  "  Romeo  "  at  the  Lyceum,  and  also  in  Mr.  Pinero's  own 
play.  Upon  it  she  had  inscribed  a  quotation  from  her  own 
part  in  "  Lords  and  Commons  " — "  I  am  of  the  old  fashion." 
Lady  Pinero  kept  this  souvenir  until  the  outbreak  of  the 
Great  War,  when,  by  her  desire,  it  was  sold,  at  the  first  auction 
held  by  Christie's,  in  aid  of  the  Red  Cross  Fund. 

After  her  success  at  the  Lyceum,  in  1882,  any  London 
revival  of  "  Romeo  and  Juliet "  was  bound  to  bring  the 
veteran  actress  again  into  request,  if  she  were  still  willing, 
and  able,  to  undertake  the  "  Nurse."  When,  therefore,  in 
November,  1884,  at  the  same  theatre,  Miss  Mary  Anderson 
put  the  play  on,  with  herself  and  William  Terriss  in  the 
title  parts,  Mrs.  Stirling  was  naturally  asked  again  to  take  up 
once  more  her  old  part,  when  her  first  husband,  Edward 
Stirling,1  was  cast  for  "  Friar  Lawrence  "  ;  this  being,  no 
doubt,  the  last  production  in  which  the  couple  played  together. 
Mrs.  Stirling  repeated  her  success,  and  her  acting  received 
the  usual  chorus  of  press  approval,  though  the  criticisms 
made,  in  some  quarters,  two  years  before  were  again  heard 
— against  the  dominance  that  the  old  lady  put  into  the 
part. 

Mrs.  Stirling's  "Nurse"  [wrote  the  Athenceum]  is  too  distinguished. 
That  a  woman  occupying  her  position  in  a  household  such  as  that 
of  the  Capulets,  might  be  a  person  of  consideration,  may  be  granted ; 
Shakespeare,  however,  takes  care  to  show  that  she  is  not. 

The  chief  interest  of  the  production,  from  our  point  of 
view,  lies  in  the  fact  that  it  remains  well  within  the  memory 
of  the  younger  actors  and  actresses,  who,  through  playing  in 
it,  became  Mrs.  Stirling's  close  friends.  I  refer  especially 
to  Miss  Mary  Anderson  herself,  and  to  Mr.  Ben  Greet. 

The  last  named  had  been  engaged  by  Miss  Anderson  as 
the  "Apothecary."  He  was — he  tells  me — the  twelfth 
1  Stirling  lived  nearly  ten  years  longer,  dying  August  14,  1894. 


214     THE  STAGE  LIFE  OF  MRS.  STIRLING 

"  Apothecary  "  :  and  he  overheard  Miss  Anderson  say  that, 
good  or  bad,  he  must  be  kept,  as  she  could  not  be  bothered 
with  a  thirteenth !  Weariness,  or  caution  ?  Mr.  Greet 
did  not  know ;  but  he  was  kept ;  and  he  made  friends  with 
the  old  "  Nurse." 

We  had  long  rehearsals  ;  and  the  dear  old  lady  used  to  sit  in  the 
stalls,  or  sometimes  in  the  dress-circle,  at  the  Lyceum,  and,  while 
taking  keen  interest  in  the  proceedings,  would  pass  the  quaintest 
remarks  upon  the  performers,  and  the  general  methods  adopted. 
Between  her  racy  comments,  and  comparisons  between  the  old  order 
and  the  new,  she  would  hug  her  knees,  crippled  by  rheumatism — 
and,  swaying  to  and  fro  upon  her  seat,  would  murmur  :  "  O  !  my 
knees,  my  knees  !  " 

One  day,  during  these  rehearsals,  she  confided  to  me  that  she 
still  loved  acting,  but  was  sick  and  tired  of  the  dressing-up  and  un- 
dressing. "  If  only  someone  would  take  me  up,  and  drop  me  down, 
ready  dressed,  on  the  stage  !  But  for  myself,  I  think  it  is  time  I 
gave  it  up." 

When  eventually  the  play  was  produced,  I  used  to  fetch  her  nearly 
every  night  from  her  dressing-room — Miss  Mary  Anderson  would  do 
it  sometimes — and  take  her  across  to  her  entrance.  She  needed  my 
help  most  when  the  "  black-outs  "  came  to  change  the  scenes.  This 
was  an  American  innovation,  to  black  out  all  lights,  so  that  the  scenes 
could  be  changed  in  the  pitch  dark,  without  having  the  drop  curtain 
down.  They  could  do  it  over  there,  where  they  had  electric  light 
in  theatres  years  before  we  did  here.  Poor  dear  !  she  was  rather 
blind  in  those  days,  and  very  nervous  ;  and  just  could  not  stand  the 
tremendous  shiftings  of  the  scenes.  She  used  to  think  the  whole 
bag-of-tricks  was  tumbling  on  her,  and  would  say :  "  O  !  those 
toppling  cathedrals  ;  they  always  make  me  feel  as  though  I  were 
in  an  earthquake  !  " 

But  the  member  of  the  company  who  came  most  closely 
into  the  last  years  of  Mrs.  Stirling's  life,  both  as  fellow- 
actress  and  friend,  was  Miss  Mary  Anderson  herself.  One 
glance  at  the  well-known  photograph  l  of  them  together,  as 
"  Juliet  "  and  her  "  Nurse  " — the  best  photograph  of  Mrs. 
Stirling  ever  taken,  and  one  of  the  loveliest  of  Miss  Anderson 
also — suggests  a  mutual  affection  that  was  not  put  off  with 
the  parts. 

At  her  beautiful  house  at  Broadway,  Mme.  de  Navarro, 
— as  she  now  is — kindly  gave  me  some  very  interesting 
recollections  of  the  old  lady  and  her  art. 
1  By  Messrs.  Downey. 


LAST  APPEARANCES  215 

When  Mrs.  Stirling  walked  on  to  the  stage  she  ceased  to  be  Mrs. 
Stirling,  but  became  somebody  else — in  "  Romeo  and  Juliet"  the  old 
Italian  retainer,  Shakespeare's  "  Nurse."  No  one  has  been  quite 
the  same,  quite  as  real,  before  or  since — not  even  Miss  Ellen  Terry, 
when  she  played  with  Doris  Keane. 

Mrs.  Stirling's  scene  with  "  Romeo,"  where  she  pretends  to  refuse 
the  bribe,1  was  magnificent.  "  No,  truly  sir,  not  a  penny  !  "  stand- 
ing with  her  hands  behind  her  back.  Then,  when  she  had  taken  the 
money,  she  would  cross  the  stage,  chinking  the  coins  as  she  went, 
with  her  hands  under  her  chin,  until  "  Peter  "  was  within  reach  of 
her  stick.  Then  it  was  thwack  !  thwack  !  thwack  : — chink,  chink, 
chink — quite  legitimate  business,  that  every  night  would  set  the 
house  in  a  roar.2 

In  the  garden-scene  also  Mrs.  Stirling  was  wonderful.  While 
exasperating  "  Juliet "  almost  to  distraction — by  withholding  the 
longed-for  news  of  "  Romeo  " — she  would  convey  to  the  audience, 
all  the  time,  the  deep  affection  that  underlay  her  love  of  fun  and 
mischief.  This  quality  of  living  impersonation,  it  was,  that  made 
her  so  delightful  to  work  with.  Remembering  that  great  actress, 
there  seems  to  me  to  be  so  little  of  such  spirit  upon  the  modern 
stage  ;  but  rather  a  tendency,  when  your  scene  is  done,  to  go  off, 
talk  about  motor-cars,  and  take  little  more  interest  in  the  remainder 
of  the  play. 

She  was  a  darling  !  and  very  charming  in  all  her  ways.  Between 
the  morning  and  evening  performances  she  used  to  love  to  sit  cosily 
with  me  in  my  dressing-room  ;  and  have  something  to  eat — oysters, 
I  remember,  were  a  favourite  dish  of  hers— and  then  she  liked  to  sit 
by  the  fire,  and  give  up  all  activity,  and  just  play  at  being  very  old. 
I  used  to  lecture  her  for  giving  in  so  ;  and  when  she  repeated  that 
she  was  "  finished  with,  and  done  for,"  I  would  say  :  "  No,  indeed, 
you  are  not :  you  must  cheer  up,  and  not  give  way.  Remember  Mrs. 
Keeley  :  she  is  older  than  you  are,  but  doesn't  give  up  so."  3 

One  day,  during  the  run  at  the  Lyceum,  when  I  was  lunching 
with  W.  E.  Gladstone— the  G.O.M.— he  said  to  me  :  "  You  will  be 
seeing  Fanny  Stirling  to-night ;  please  tell  her  from  me — she  was 
my  first  love.4  No  harm  to  tell  her  so  now  ! " 

Mme.  de  Navarre's  further,  and  beautiful,  relations  with 
her  old  friend  I  must  leave  until  I  have  completed  the  story 
of  Mrs.  Stirling's  stage  career. 

1  Act  II,  Scene  4. 

*  Miss  Anderson  played  this  for  me  with  great  zest — the  "  Juliet  "  of 
1884  became  the  "Nurse"  in  1921. 

3  Mrs.  Keeley,  born  in  1805,  was  then  in  her  eightieth  year.     She  died 
in  1899. 

4  The    year    referred    to    was    probably    1838.    or    thereabouts.      See 
Chapter  III. 


210     THE   STAGE  LIFE   OF  MRS.   STIRLING 

Concerning  1885,  there  is  little  of  interest  to  relate,  but 
on  March  25,  willing  and  eager  as  ever  in  the  cause  of 
charity,  Mrs.  Stirling  appeared  with  Mrs.  Keeley  in  a  rhymed 
epilogue  by  Clement  Scott,  at  a  matinee  on  behalf  of  the 
National  Aid  Society  for  the  sick  and  wounded  in  Egypt 
and  the  Soudan.  On  July  20  of  the  same  year,  at  the 
Haymarket,  with  many  other  professionals,  including  Irving 
and  Toole,  she  took  part  in  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Bancroft's  fare- 
well performance,  upon  their  retirement.  Her  task  was 
to  portray,  for  the  last  time,  one  of  her  favourite  characters 
in  the  old  days — "  Lady  Franklin,"  in  the  first  act  of  Bulwer 
Lytton's  "Money."  At  Creswick's  Benefit,  October  29, 
she  was  once  more  on  the  stage  with  Mrs.  Keeley,  and  recited 
"  Our  Whaler  Fleet."  Occasionally  she  would  be  persuaded 
to  appear  at  some  charity  matinee,  in  one  of  her  old  parts, 
as,  for  example,  "  Mrs.  Steinhold,"  in  "  Still  Waters  Run 
Deep,"  at  the  Naval  College,  Greenwich,  when  Carlotta 
Addison  played  "  Mrs.  Mildmay."  Mr.  Ben  Greet,  who 
was  present,  remembers  Mrs.  Stirling's  performance,  as 
being  most  remarkable. 

Then,  in  December,  came  Henry  Irving's  production  of 
Goethe's  "  Faust,"  as  adapted  by  Wills.  The  actor-manager, 
in  search  of  a  "Martha,"  offered  the  part  to  Mrs.  Stirling. 
The  old  lady,  dubious  of  her  physical  strength,  hesitated. 
She  went  to  Mr.  Bancroft,  who,  with  Mrs.  Bancroft,  was  then 
among  her  closest  friends.  He  thought  that  she  might 
well  attempt  it ;  she  consented,  therefore,  and  took  up 
what  proved  to  be  her  last  part. 

All  things  considered,  the  actress  succeeded  remarkably 
well,  in  a  production  that,  despite  some  unfavourable 
comment,  received  much  approval  and  support.  The 
Daily  Telegraph,  always  faithful  to  an  established  favourite, 
told  us  that  "  to  atone  for  all  the  failure  in  fancy  and  fervour  " 
— the  critic,  Clement  Scott  I  suppose,  had  complained 
of  lack  of  melody  in  the  orchestral  music — 

we  had  the  scene  between  "  Martha  "  and  "  Mephistopheles  "  inimit- 
ably played  by  Mrs.  Stirling  and  Mr.  Irving.  It  was  not  the  "  Martha  " 
of  our  imagination,  but  what  actress  of  our  time  could  do  so  much 
with  so  little  ?  Each  line  on  each  side  was  a  point,  and  the  best  point 
made  by  Charles  Kean, 


LAST  APPEARANCES  217 

Where  will  she  go  by  and  by, 
I  wonder  ?    I  won't  have  her, 

was   doubly   emphasized   by   Mr.   Irving.      The    whole   house   rose 
at  it.  * 

Other  critics  complained  that,  as  in  the  "  Nurse,"  Mrs. 
Stirling  usurped,  upon  the  stage,  greater  prominence  than 
the  author  had  intended  for  her ;  while,  concerning  her  age, 
The  Times  was  almost  brutally  frank.  "  Mrs.  Stirling,  as 
"Martha,"  though  she  has  done  her  best,  is  too  old  for  the 
part,  which  in  opera  is  appropriately  played  by  robust  con- 
traltos of  forty- five  "  ;  and,  indeed,  the  truth  of  the  matter 
is,  that,  clever  as  the  old  lady  might  be  at  concealing  the 
fact,  her  sight,  which  had  been  failing  her  since  "  Romeo 
and  Juliet,"  had  now  almost  completely  gone. 

Miss  Ellen  Terry  herself,  I  well  remember,  over  a  cup  of 
tea,  in  her  house  at  Chelsea,  told  me  the  story,  almost  in 
these  words  : 

One  night,  at  the  beginning  of  the  run — it  was  just  before  "  Henry's  " 
entrance — I  was  sitting  here  on  the  stage,  and  your  grandmother 
there.  Then  came  the  knock  at  the  door — rat-a-tat !  That  was 
"  Mephistopheles."  Your  grandmother  started  at  the  noise,  dropped 
her  work,  rose,  and  went  to  open  the  door  for  him.  Meanwhile,  I 
crossed  the  stage,  and  took  up  the  work,  which  I  thought  might 
be  in  the  way.  "  Martha,"  by  this  time,  was  ushering  "  Henry  "  in. 
She  had  been  able  to  see  pretty  well,  at  his  entrance,  because  a  red 
light  was  thrown  upon  him  ;  but  as  soon  as  she  was  well  on  the  stage 
again,  she  lost  her  way,  and  nearly  fell  into  the  orchestra.  When 
the  play  was  over,  the  old  lady  came  to  me,  and  said  : 

"  My  dear,  why  did  you  pick  up  my  work  ?  " 

"  Because  I  thought  it  would  be  in  your  way  !  " 

44  It  wasn't  in  my  way  ;  I  dropped  it  there  on  purpose.  When 
I  come  from  the  door  I  can  see  that  white  patch,  and  when  I  get  to 
the  patch  I  can  see  my  seat ;  but  I  can't  find  my  way  to  my  seat 
without  first  getting  to  my  work." 

The  dropping  of  the  work  had  followed  so  naturally  upon 
the  start,  at  hearing  "  Mephistopheles'  "  knock,  as  to  make 
even  the  "  Marguerite "  think  the  incident  involuntary. 
When  I  heard  the  story  from  the  original  "  Marguerite," 
that  lady  transformed  herself  into  "  Martha,"  dropped  her 
handkerchief  upon  the  floor,  to  represent  the  work,  and 
1  Daily  Telegraph,  December  21,  1885. 


218     THE   STAGE  LIFE   OF  MRS.  STIRLING 

acted  the  scene  for  me.    It  is  a  recollection  that  will  long 
remain. 

Mrs.  Stirling  continued  to  play  " Martha"  until  the  close 
of  the  summer  season  at  the  Lyceum,  on  Saturday,  July  31, 
1886.  When  the  curtain  had  fallen  that  evening,  Henry 
Irving,  in  response  to  a  call,  came  forward,  still  dressed  as 
"  Mephistopheles,"  and  expressed  his  thanks,  and  those  of 
Miss  Terry,  for  the  unstinted  kindness  of  their  public.  He 
then  added  : 

I  regret  to  tell  you  that  we  are  about  to  lose  the  help  of  one  of 
the  most  distinguished  actresses  of  the  British  stage — Mrs.  Stirling. 
Not  that  this  is  her  leave-taking.  I  hope  that  she  will  be  persuaded 
to  appear  once  more  ;  but  she  feels  the  necessity  of  rest  and  retire- 
ment. Mrs.  Stirling  has  indeed  done  the  stage  good  service,  having 
been  constantly  before  the  London  public  for  fifty-seven  years.1  I 
am  sure  that  all  true  lovers  of  the  drama  hope  that  her  future  sur- 
roundings may  be  serene  and  bright.  I  do  with  all  my  heart. 

Irving  then  led  Mrs.  Stirling  before  the  curtain  to  make 
her  bow,  after  which  ceremony,  Miss  Ellen  Terry  and  other 
ladies  of  the  company  "  waited  upon  her,"  and  presented 
her  with  a  basket  of  flowers.  Thus  quietly,  and  character- 
istically, without  formal  leave-taking,  this  long  stage  career 
came  to  an  end.  When  the  run  of  "  Faust "  was  resumed, 
the  part  of  "Martha"  was  taken  by  Mrs.  Chippendale. 

From  that  time  forward  the  veteran  actress  lived  in 
complete  retirement  at  her  London  home,  3,  Duchess  Street, 
Portland  Place.  Her  old  age,  during  these  years,  was  some- 
what lonely  and  unhappy,  and  found  its  chief  solace,  I  think, 
in  the  close  friendship  of  Miss  Mary  Anderson,  who  corre- 
sponded with  her  much,  and  visited  her  frequently.  "  She 
treats  me  absolutely  as  a  child,  but  would  come  to  me  again 
and  again  for  help.  When  I  visited  her,  she  would  say: 
4  Sit  here,  Mary,  and  hold  my  hand ' ;  and  then  she  would 
pour  out  all  her  troubles." 

These  were  in  part  religious.  The  longing  for  spiritual 
peace  was  strong  within  her  at  this  time ;  and,  having  been 
educated,  when  a  girl,  as  a  Roman  Catholic,  she  naturally 
found  herself  turning  for  help  to  the  devoted  friend  who 
was  also  of  the  same  faith.  In  Miss  Anderson's  own  words  : 

1  If  this  be  correct,  it  fixes  her  London  de"but  at  the  year  1829. 


LAST  APPEARANCES  219 

"  I,  being  a  woman,  and  her  close  friend,  knew  better  perhaps 
than  any  priest  exactly  where  she  was,  and  how  to  deal 
with  her."  Conversation  on  spiritual  matters  was  the  sub- 
ject she  preferred  to  any  other  during  these  years.  Three 
characteristic  letters,  written  to  Miss  Anderson  about  this 
time,  will  be  read  with  interest. 

Mrs.  Stirling  to  Miss  Mary  Anderson  (Mme.  de  Navarro). 

3,  DUCHESS  STREET, 

PORTLAND  PLACE,  W. 

(no  date)  Friday. 
MY  DEAREST  MARY, 

You  will,  from  not  hearing  earlier  this  morning,  have  guessed 
that  I  have  not  been  able  to  see  my  way  to  leaving  home  just  now. 
I  will  not  bother  you  with  all  the  reasons  that  make  it  undesirable 
for  me  to  do  so  ;  they  would  all  seem  so  trifling  in  comparison  with 
the  comfort  and  peace  that  might  perhaps  ensue.  I  live  a  life  of 
great  loneliness  and  quiet,  sometimes  not  hearing  a  voice  all  day, 
but  my  own,  and  I  ought,  I  feel,  to  be  able  to  commune  with  myself 
and  try  to  help  myself  during  this  quiet — and  I  must  be  content  for 
the  present  to  try  and  do  so.  While  writing  this  you  are  perhaps 
saying  your  promised  little  prayer  for  me.  May  God  hear  you  on  my 
behalf !  I  shall  never  forget  your  goodness  in  coming  to  me  to  tell 
of  the  possibility  of  gaining  peace  and  comfort.  I  envy  you,  dear, 
the  happiness  you  have  been  blessed  with,  and  cannot  tell  you  how 
happy  it  made  me  to  see  your  happiness.  I  prize  so  much  the  little 
book  you  gave  me  :  it  will  never  leave  me,  and  I  shall  look  into  it 
every  day,  reminding  me  of  your  love  and  thought  for  me.  God 
will  bless  you  for  it,  dear.  I  hope  you  will  not  leave  England  without 
letting  me  see  you  again.  It  is  selfish  to  ask  this,  but  to  see  you  and 
to  know  you  to  be  happy  is  next  door  to  being  happy  myself! 

F.  S. 

3,  DUCHESS  STREET, 

PORTLAND  PLACE,  W. 

29th  (July,  1886). 

Oh  !  my  dearest  Mary,  I  am  so  angry  with  you  !  for  months  not 
a  line  !  I  did  not  know  whether  you  were  in  England  or  where,  and 
tho'  thinking  of  you  all  day  yesterday  did  not  know  where  to  send 
to  let  you  know  how  much  I  was  thinking  of  you  ;  but  now,  dear, 
you  must  take  the  will  for  the  deed,  and  imagine  all  the  love  and 
blessings  I  wished  to  send.  I  have  been  very  unwell  all  this  time, 
but  I  thank  God,  who  has  heard  all  the  prayers  of  my  sister,  and  of 
those  better  able  to  pray  for  me  than  I  for  myself,  I  am  a  little  better 
and  hoping  to  leave  town  next  week  for  a  few  days  in  search  of  air. 


220     THE  STAGE  LIFE   OF  MRS.   STIRLING 


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LAST  APPEARANCES  221 


I  shall  only  be  away  about  ten  days,  and  then,  if  I  am  equal  to  it, 
after  a  week  or  two,  go  away  again  for  a  short  time.  I  have  not  been 
out  of  London  for  months,  so  you  must  pray  that  I  may  come  back 
safely  !  I  hope  I  may  live  to  see  you  in  September,  it  will  be  quite 
something  to  look  forward  to.  London  is  clearing  fast  after  all  that 
dreadful  jubilee  business.1  I  hope  you  are  having  a  real  good  time 
of  rest  and  peace.  Good-bye,  my  "  lady  bird,"  2  and  God  bless  you 
for  thinking  of  "  Nurse  "  Stirling. 

3,  DUCHESS  STREET, 

PORTLAND  PLACE,  W. 

(no  date)  Thursday. 
MY  DEAREST  MARY, 

I  am  so  glad  to  get  your  letter.  I  concluded  you  had  left 
Malvern,  so  did  not  write.  I  hope  you  have  had  a  "  good  time  " 
of  it !  I  think  I  told  you  Father  Gavin  was  called  away  to  a  convent 
at  Brighton  ;  he  went  to  see  my  sister  at  our  Lady's  Priory — he  had 
been  to  see  me  nearly  every  day  up  to  that  time,  and  immediately 
on  his  return,  so  that  I  have  not  seen  him  for  some  little  time,  he 
being  still  away,  but,  during  his  first  absence  I  went  to  Nazareth 
House  3  to  talk  with  Sister  Mary  (the  General  Superioress)  who  much 
wished  me  to  know  "  Father  Bede,"  who  was  there  giving  them  a 
retreat,  and  whom  she  had  known  for  years.  I  had  a  long  talk  with 
him,  and  the  result  was  a  confession  made  there  at  once — I  felt  if 
it  was  not  done  then,  at  the  moment,  I  might  never  be  able  to  nerve 
myself  again.  I  know  you  will  rejoice  at  this,  dear,  together  with 
my  sister  and  all  the  good  sisters  at  Nazareth  House,  all  of  whom 
have  been  praying  for  me  incessantly.  I  cannot  stop  to  tell  you 
half,  and  I  leave  town  on  Saturday  for  about  three  weeks.  Letters 
sent  here  will  be  forwarded.  I  am  so  sorry  to  think  I  shall  miss  seeing 
you  just  yet.  God  bless  you,  dear. 

F.  S. 

The  sister  referred  to  in  the  last  letter  was  Agnes,  who 
for  many  years  had  been  Lady  Superior  at  a  convent  on 
the  continent — at  Bruges,  I  think — and  was  now  returned 
to  England.  It  was  typical  of  Mrs.  Stirling's  lonely  isolation 
from  her  family  connexions,  that  when  these  two  met,  after 
some  twenty-five  years  of  separation,  they  did  not,  at  first, 
recognize  one  another.  At  that  very  time,  too,  the  old 
actress  would  occasionally  pass,  in  Portland  Place,  a  young 
woman  of  distinguished  appearance.  The  two  ladies  ex- 

1  Queen  Victoria,  1886. 

8  "Romeo  and  Juliet,"  Act  I,  Scene  3.     "Nurse,"  calling  " Juliet "i 
"  What,  lamb  !    what,  lady-bird  !  " 
3  The  Convent  at  Hammersmith. 


222     THE  STAGE  LIFE  OF  MRS.  STIRLING 

changed  glances  ;  but  only  the  younger  knew — what  she 
was  not  free  to  tell — that  Mrs.  Stirling  was  looking  upon  her 
own  granddaughter. 

Mrs.  Stirling  still  did  a  little  teaching.  On  October  26, 
1892,  at  the  time  when  Irving  was  about  to  revive  "  Lear  " 
at  the  Lyceum,  Miss  Ellen  Terry  wrote  in  her  diary : 

A  fine  day.  To  call  on  the  young  Duchess  of  S.  What  a  sweet 
and  beautiful  young  girl  she  is  !  I  said  I  would  write  and  ask  Mrs. 
Stirling  to  give  her  lessons,  but  feared  she  could  not,  as  she  was  ill. 

In  November  came  this  answer,  from  the  old  "  Cordelia  " 
to  the  young  one  : 

I  am  too  ill  and  weak  to  see  anyone  in  the  way  of  lessons.  I  am 
just  alive — in  pain  and  distress  always,  but  always  anxious  for  news 
from  the  Lyceum.  "  Lear  "  will  be  a  great  success,  I  am  sure.  I 
was  "  Cordelia  "  with  Macready. 

On  August  14,  1894,  her  first  husband,  Edward  Stirling, 
died,  and  a  few  months  later,  in  the  same  year,  at  the  age 
of  eighty-one,  the  widow  married  an  old  friend  with  whom 
she  had  long  been  very  intimate,  and  who,  for  years  past, 
had  been  a  familiar  figure  in  the  stalls,  whenever  Mrs. 
Stirling  was  performing.  This  was  Sir  Charles  Gregory,1 
past -president  of  the  Society  of  Civil  Engineers — in  Miss 
Ellen  Terry's  phrase, 

a  very  courtly  old  gentleman,  who  honoured  her,  and  was  most  devoted 
to  her.  They  used  to  walk  up  Portland  Place  together  every  morning, 
both  looking  very  distinguished,  and  a  little  bent.  Sir  George  and 
Lady  Lewis,  from  a  neighbouring  window,  would  look  out,  every 
morning,  for  "  the  old  couple." 

Serene  and  peaceful  were  those  last  months  of  her  life, 
passed  in  the  companionship  of  her  husband,  and  further 
cheered  by  occasional  visits  from  some  of  her  stage  friends. 
Miss  Mary  Anderson  when  in  England  was  the  most  frequent 
visitor  of  them  all,  and  perhaps  the  best  beloved.  Mrs. 
Kendal  went  once,  and  was  received  "as  by  a  queen." 

Sir  Squire  Bancroft  also  has  told  me  how,  on  Sunday 
evenings,  after  service,  he  used  to  stroll  up  to  her  house, 

1  Sir  Charles  Hutton  Gregory,  K.C.M.G.,  born  October  14,  1817. 


LAST  APPEARANCES  228 

No.  3,  Duchess  Street,  Portland  Place,  and  chat  with  the 
old  lady.  Upon  one  occasion,  as  she  was  about  to  retire, 
he  rose,  offered  her  his  arm,  and  led  her  to  the  door.  When 
he  had  returned  to  his  chair,  Sir  Charles  Gregory,  who  was 
present,  said  to  his  guest  :  "  You  are  the  only  man  I  know 
whom  she  would  allow  to  do  that." 

Sometimes  the  late  Lady  Bancroft  also  was  of  the  party. 
She  has  told  us  that, 

My  husband  and  I  often  enjoyed  Lady  Gregory's  society  until  the 
close  of  her  long  life.  We  often  sat  and  gossiped  at  her  house  in 
Duchess  Street,  until  her  peaceful  end.  I  seem  still  to  see  her  sad- 
dened eyes,  as,  in  answer  to  my  farewell  words,  they  accompanied 
her  lips,  which  said,  "  And  God  bless  you,  my  dear." 

On  December  28,  1895,  Lady  Gregory  died,  at  the  age 
of  eighty-two.  The  funeral,  which,  according  to  her  express 
wish,  was  strictly  private,  took  place  at  the  Brompton 
Cemetery.  The  actress  bequeathed  her  estate  to  her  husband, 
and  a  few  mementoes  to  personal  friends.  Her  portrait,  as 
"  Peg  Woffington,"  went  to  Lady  Bancroft,  and  the  stick 
which  she  had  used  in  1884,  as  the  "  Nurse,"  went  to 
Sir  Squire  Bancroft,  in  whose  possession  it  still  remains.1 

On  January  10,  1898,  Sir  Charles  Gregory  also  passed 
away,  and  was  buried  beside  his  wife.  The  grave  is  on  the 
west  side  of  the  main  avenue  of  Brompton  Cemetery,  not 
very  far  from  the  Richmond  Road  entrance. 

1  Another  had  gone  to  Lady  Pinero.     See  ante,  p.  213. 


CHAPTER   XVIII 

CONCLUSION 

MRS.  STIRLING'S  position  among  the  players  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  posterity  alone  can  determine ;  but,  how- 
ever critically  one  may  regard  the  actress,  her  extraordinary 
versatility,  and  the  length  and  prominence  of  her  stage- 
career,  entitle  her,  beyond  challenge,  to  a  foremost  place. 

Summing  up  her  chief  characteristics  as  an  actress,  in 
the  memories  of  those  who  knew  her  best,  one  recalls,  at 
once,  Miss  Ellen  Terry's  words,  in  her  autobiography : 

She  (Mrs.  Stirling)  swept  on  to  the  stage,  and  in  that  magical  way 
never  to  be  learned,  filled  it.  She  had  such  breadth  of  style,  such 
a  lovely  voice,  such  a  beautiful  expressive  eye  .  .  .  her  smile  was 
the  most  fascinating,  irresistible  thing  imaginable. 

That  voice,  Mme.  de  Navarro  told  me,  was  rich  and  deep 
— sometimes  almost  masculine. 

This  powerful  and  dominant  personality,  it  was — this 
knowledge  of  the  largeness  of  her  art — the  "  bigger,  my 
dear,  bigger,"  of  the  class-room — moulded  with  half  a 
century  of  experience,  that  gave  her  the  broad  range,  and 
the  queenly  distinction,  so  remarkable  in  this  last  exponent 
of  the  grand  manner  in  comedy.  At  the  same  time — as 
Sir  Frank  Benson  has  pointed  out — Mrs.  Stirling  was  never 
of  the  old,  stilted  declamatory  school,  that  Sir  Arthur 
Pinero  has  satirized  in  "  Trelawney  of  the  Wells  " — but 
was  essentially  natural  and  human,  though  not  of  a  certain 
modern  natural  type,  that  is  comparatively  untrained, 
and  reveals,  upon  occasion,  some  of  the  "  naturalness  "  of 
the  amateur.  Moreover,  she  spoke  her  lines  beautifully, 
because  she  felt  them  beautifully,  and  into  every  part  in 
which  she  was  really  interested,  could  throw  a  compelling 


CONCLUSION  225 

animation,  a  truth,  and  a  sincerity  that  enabled  her,  at 
times,  to  rise  from  mere  impersonation  to  that  loftiest 
and  rarest  of  all  histrionic  achievements — absolute  personifi- 
cation. 

Yet  this  general  effect,  though  due,  in  part,  of  course, 
to  temperamental  faculties  that  defy  analysis,  owed  much 
also  to  scrupulous  attention  to  minutest  details.  Nothing 
was  so  small  as  to  be  beneath  her  attention.  Dame  May 
Whitty  told  the  writer  that  she  still  remembers  Mrs. 
Stirling's  advice  to  her :  "  Mind  you  dot  your  I's  and 
cross  your  T's  "  ;  and  the  old  "  Nurse,"  it  appears,  used 
to  say  approvingly  to  her  "  Juliet,"  when  they  were 
reading  Shakespeare  together :  "  You  pay  attention  to 
the  author's  punctuation ;  and  so  many  of  the  younger 
people  don't :  but  it  is  essential  that  they  should  do  so, 
for  our  best  editors,  no  doubt,  give  us  Shakespeare's  own 
punctuation  pretty  closely ;  and  it  must  be  adhered  to," 
Still,  while  neglecting  no  detail  that  would  complete  the 
picture,  Mrs.  Stirling  never  lost  her  sense  of  proportion, 
nor  failed  to  realize  the  greatness  of  the  whole.  As  an 
expression  of  the  ideal — besides  an  interpretation  of  the 
real— she  was  always  conscious  of  the  nobility  of  her  art. 

In  private,  as  in  public,  Mrs.  Stirling  was  a  fine  reader 
of  Shakespeare ;  and  among  all  the  many  Shakespearean 
parts  she  had  played,  none  appealed  to  her  more  than 
44  Rosalind."  She  read  it  several  times  to  Miss  Anderson, 
who  thought  it  a  very  beautiful  interpretation,  though 
quite  different  from  that  of  Helen  Faucit. 

The  actress's  greatest  technical  fault — noticeable,  in 
some  degree,  from  her  early  stage  years,  but  more  pro- 
nounced towards  the  close  of  her  career — was  an  occasional 
tendency  to  over-accentuate,  and  to  over-act — a  weakness 
due  to  her  intense  desire  to  please.  Again  and  again  the 
pressmen  comment  upon  this  defect.  Even  so  urbane 
and  gracious  a  critic  as  Westland  Marston  wrote,  con- 
cerning one  of  her  later  performances  of  "  Mrs.  Candour  "  : 
44  Poor  dear,  she  makes  wrinkles  of  what  ought  to  be 
dimples  !  " 

Of  her  completeness  as  an  artist,  nevertheless,  there  can 
be  no  question.  Even  her  method  of  taking  a  call — the 

15 


226     THE   STAGE   LIFE   OF   MRS.   STIRLING 

finishing  touch  that  is  so  often  a  great  revealer  of  char- 
acter 1 — was  in  itself  a  lesson  in  the  grace  and  dignity  of 
high  art.  No  contemporary  actor  was  her  equal  at  such 
significant  givings  of  thanks,  nor  are  there  many  living 
to-day  who  suggest  her  method  of  appearing  before  the 
curtain,  excepting,  perhaps,  Dame  Genevieve  Ward — herself 
Mrs.  Stirling's  pupil  in  "  Maritana  " — who  has  something  of 
her  queenly  presence.2  The  elder  actress's  method  of 
doing  homage  reminded  her  contemporaries  of  Colley 
Gibber's  well-known  description  of  Mrs.  Mountfort.  "  Down 
goes  her  dainty  diving  body  to  the  ground,  as  if  she  were 
sinking  under  the  conscious  load  of  her  own  attractions  .  .  „ 
still  playing  her  chest  forward  in  fifty  falls,  and  rising  like 
a  swan  upon  the  waving  water."  In  short,  to  quote  once 
more  one  who  is  herself  a  great  artist,  a  great  giver — Miss 
Ellen  Terry :  "  Mrs.  Stirling,  from  the  rise  of  the  curtain 
until  its  last  fall,  just  gave,  gave,  gave."  And  therein 
you  have  a  powerful  secret,  perhaps  the  most  potent 
secret,  of  all  great  and  noble  art.3 

Nor  must  this  gifted  woman  be  wholly  forgotten  in  her 
second,  and  lesser,  public  capacity,  as  an  after-dinner 
speaker.  When  one  considers  the  pleasure  that  such  an 
art,  well  used,  can  give,  and  the  ineffable  and  laborious 
dullness  of  the  average  post-prandial  attempt,  her  ora- 
torical efforts  shine  like  good  deeds  in  a  naughty  world. 
Sometimes,  'tis  true,  her  tun,  or  her  pun,  was  thin,  and 
her  humour  occasionally  cheap ;  but  the  adroit,  facile, 
and  often  daring  manner  in  wrhich  a  multitude  of  topical 
subjects,  and  personalities  of  the  day,  were  used  to  point 
her  wit,  and  were  drawn,  by  artful  allusion,  towards  her 
ultimate  purpose  of  extracting  guineas  for  the  fund,  from 
the  pockets  of  her  hearers  ;  the  range  of  her  ideas,  the 

1  Not  long  ago  I  saw  a  well-known  actor  at  a  West-End  theatre  take  a 
call  with  a  pipe  in  his  mouth,  and  two  ladies  beside  him  on  the  stage.     No 
one,  save  myself,  seemed  to  consider  the  incident  unseemly. 

2  Dame  Ward  told  me  of  "  Maritana  "  when,  during  the  winter  of  1920, 
she  was  playing   "  Volumnia "   in   "  Coriolanus "   at    the    Old  Vic.     That 
lady  also  referred  to  the  pleasure  with  which  she  remembered  Mrs.  Stirling 
in  "  Plot  and  Passion."     Sir  Squire  Bancroft  has  the  same  recollection. 

3  I  asked  an  actor  who  played  much  with  Mrs.  Stirling  :    "  Who  was 
her  successor  upon  the  English  stage  ?  "     His  answer  was  :    "  If  she  had 
a  successor,  it  was  Mrs.  Kendal :    and  Mrs.  Kendal  has  had  no  successor." 


CONCLUSION  227 

readiness  of  her  illustration,  the  felicity  of  her  antithesis, 
the  allusive  skill,  and  the  simple  eloquence,  of  her  con- 
cluding appeals — all  these  graces — accompanied  as  they 
were  by  the  charm  of  her  personality,  and  technical  excel- 
lence of  her  delivery — must  have  made  her  speeches  a 
delight  to  listen  to.  That  she  had  then  no  equal  at  the 
dining-table,  nor,  so  far  as  I  know,  has  had  one  since 
among  her  sister  actresses,  is  suggested  by  the  fact  that 
for  nearly  twenty  years  she  remained  the  principal  speaker 
at  those  functions  in  King  Street,  St.  James's. 

My  grandmother's  ways,  tastes  and  preferences,  in 
private  life,  have  been  almost  enough  touched  upon,  in 
a  record  which  is  not  intended  to  wander  far  outside  her 
stage  career.  But  a  word  or  two  may  come  in  here. 

While  neither  her  speeches  nor  her  letters  reveal  a  really 
literary  turn  of  mind,  that  she  was  interested  in  literature 
is  evident,  though  her  correspondence,  it  must  be  remem- 
bered, was  dashed  off  impetuously,  upon  any  piece  of  paper 
that  might  come  handy,  without  forethought,  for  the  eye 
of  the  reader  alone,  and,  in  most  cases,  with  the  primary 
intention  of  drawing  a  reply.  As  for  her  other  accom- 
plishments, she  knew  something  of  French,  played  occa- 
sionally in  that  language,  sang  with  a  certain  skill,  and 
could  draw  and  paint  ably  in  water-colours.  One  picture, 
at  least,  from  her  hand,  hangs  in  the  Savage  Club. 

Of  her  private  life  in  general  I  know  little,  nor  is  it 
necessary  to  say  much,  though  a  moment's  recapitulation 
may  be  interesting. 

Mary  Anne  Hehl,  as  we  have  seen,  was  denied  a  full 
measure  of  that  precious  commodity,  wise  training  at 
home.  Cast  at  an  early  age,  unbefriended,  upon  a  difficult 
world,  with  her  livelihood  to  earn,  and  the  dangerous 
gifts  of  beauty  and  fascination,  to  help  or  hinder  her  pro- 
gress, she  made,  as  was  most  probable,  the  initial  mistake 
of  a  rash  and  unhappy  marriage,  that  was  to  disturb  the 
under-current  of  her  life,  and  lead  her  into  many  an  eddy 
and  backwater,  before  she  found  the  main  stream  again. 
That  the  domestic  instinct,  at  times,  was  strong  in  her, 
and  that  she  longed  often  for  safe  harbourage,  is  positively 
certain.  As  some  readers  may  remember,  she  wrote,  on 


228     THE   STAGE  LIFE   OF   MRS.   STIRLING 

one  occasion,  to  Mrs.  Baylis  :    "  O,  if  mine   was  a  really 
happy  home,  what  a  home-bird  I  should  be  !  "  l 

But  the  trouble  lay  deeper  than  that.  Mrs.  Stirling, 
as  well  as  artist,  was  idealist  through  and  through ;  and 
for  such  there  comes  not  easily  a  full  measure  of  happi- 
ness, in  a  world  like  this.  Admired  and  sought  after  as  she 
was,  the  fascinating  smile  and  the  benignant  good-humour 
were  generally  forthcoming  at  command ;  but,  behind 
them,  the  face,  in  repose,  was  always  sad,  and  the  eyes 
wistful  and  far  away.  Until  her  latest  years,  at  any  rate, 
the  woman's  inner  and  intimate  life  lacked  serenity  and 
poise.  Frequently  impatient,  and  often  hasty  and  im- 
pulsive in  her  actions,  capable  of  strong  likings,  of  equally 
strong  dislikes,  and  of  unreasoning  prejudices,  suffering 
fools  sorrowfully,  intolerant  of  failure  in  others,  as  well 
as  in  herself — because  failure  marred  the  harmony  and 
largeness  of  her  deeper  concepts  of  life — Mrs.  Stirling 
reveals  herself  as  a  complex,  tragical-humorous  figure  of 
great  and  beautiful  human  import.  The  friend  who  knew 
her  best  declares  that  she  had  always  an  ear  for  conscience, 
a  profound  regard  for  rectitude,  in  her  dealings  with  those 
about  her,  and  that,  beneath  all  her  personal  grandeur, 
there  lay  a  deep  humility,  and  a  beautiful  sense  of  the 
spiritual  realities  and  diviner  values  of  life.  "  She  was  a 
woman  of  genius,  and  a  great  and  noble  soul,"  one  who — 
had  her  outward  circumstance  been  somewhat  different, 
and  her  life  set  a  generation  later  in  time — might  easily 
have  attained  an  even  higher  rank,  in  the  history  of  the 
nineteenth-century  stage,  than  posterity  is  now  likely  to 
accord  her. 


The  individual  passes ;  yet  the  torch  is  never  extin- 
guished. Handed  down,  the  ancient  traditions  endure. 
Mrs.  Stirling,  as  we  have  seen,  had  written,  upon  the  stick 
that  she  gave  to  Lady  Pinero,  the  words  :  "I  am  of  the 
old  school."  Here  was  at  once  a  confession,  and  a  fact. 
Though  her  long  span  of  life  had  brought  her — before  her 

1  She  was  always  hospitable.  Even  Charles  Reade's  "  Laura " — no 
friend  to  Mrs.  Stirling — admits  that. 


CONCLUSION  229 

final  retirement — into  the  heyday  of  the  new  dramatic 
movement,  she  could  not,  in  the  nature  of  things,  do  more 
than  observe,  and  give  a  hand  to,  such  changes.  She  was 
not  able  to  identify  herself  with  them,  any  more  than  were 
others  of  her  time,  as,  one  by  one,  the  old  players 
vanished,  while  the  drama  went  still  upon  its  way,  reflect- 
ing always,  more  or  less  faithfully,  the  thoughts  of  the 
age  that  had  begotten  it. 

What  path  did  our  drama  take  ?  and  whither  goes  it 
to-day  ? 

Ibsen's  influence,  at  present — having  done  what  it  had 
to  do — seems  to  be  passing,  and  the  world's  stage  is  being 
made  ready  for  the  advent  of  a  new  drama.  Upon  the 
form  that  drama  will  take,  it  would  be  idle  to  speculate  ; 
but  we  may  easily  observe  a  few  tendencies  already  visible 
upon  the  horizon. 

The  war,  as  was  inevitable,  brought  a  season  of 
theatrical  futility,  during  which  millions  of  individuals — 
seeking  nepenthe  wherever,  or  in  whatever  forms,  it  might 
be  found — welcomed  any  sort  of  dramatic  production,  good, 
bad,  or  indifferent,  that  might  hide  them,  for  one  instant, 
from  the  abhorrent  actual.  Those  days  have  long  passed  ; 
and  now,  while,  with  emptier  purses,  we  proceed  to  set  our 
ruined  house  in  order,  the  drama  must  once  more  adjust 
itself  to  strangely  altered  conditions  ;  though  these  con- 
ditions be  so  complex,  and  so  involved,  that  many  years 
must  elapse,  it  seems,  before  the  new  work  shall  take  shape, 
and  be  established. 

For  that  reason  we  need  not  be  at  all  dismayed,  nor 
even  much  disappointed,  if  many  plays  recently  put  on 
in  London  are  found  to  be  actively  vicious,  or  merely  form- 
less, meaningless,  and  inane.  Here  in  England  the  frantic 
strife  of  armed  millions  has  passed,  in  the  triumph  of  the 
juster  cause,  but  not  with  less  fury  the  mental  warfare  is 
still  being  waged.  Between  the  material  and  the  spiritual 
there  can  never  be  truce ;  their  enmity  is  permanent  and 
implacable ;  and  never  more  so  than  in  years,  such  as 
these,  of  universal  challenge  and  readjustment.  That, 
surely,  is  why  one  hears  it  declared  in  the  market-place  : 
"  Never  before  was  so  material  an  age ;  let  us  eat  and 


230     THE   STAGE   LIFE   OF   MRS.   STIRLING 

drink,  for  to-morrow  we  die  !  "  while,  at  the  next  street 
corner,  is  gathered  a  group  with  vision  enough  to  see  and 
hear  the  ever-present  spiritual  forces  whispering  among 
the  nations  :  "  Say  not  Lo  here  !  nor  Lo  there  !  for  behold, 
the  kingdom  of  God  is  within  you  !  "  Even  the  labour 
movement — though  apparently  concerned  almost  wholly 
with  material  reward — is  probably,  at  bottom,  more  inhe- 
rently idealistic  than  its  loudest  protagonists  are  aware; 
and  other  modern  cults  may  be  regarded,  even  by  their 
bitterest  opponents,  as  honest,  if  misguided,  efforts  to  shake 
off  a  part,  at  least,  of  the  heavy  burden  of  materialism. 
The  world,  in  fact,  is  seeking  a  truer  statement  of  life,  and 
the  drama  of  the  future  should,  and  ultimately  will, 
reflect  that  endeavour ;  only  we  must  be  ready  to  take  long 
views,  and  to  despair  never  of  attainment.  More  than 
ever  before  in  our  history,  we  need  plays  that  shall  be  true, 
beautiful,  optimistic,  with  healthy  laughter  in  them,  and 
some  spiritual  perception,  to  brace  and  arm  us  for  the 
fight.  This  we  hope  to  get,  and  Mr.  Storm  Jameson  may  be 
right  when  he  sees  in  "  Abraham  Lincoln  "  a  forerunner 
of  the  newer  and  nobler  school  of  drama,  now,  like  the 
children  in  Maeterlinck's  "  Betrothal,"  eagerly  awaiting 
rebirth. 

We  cannot  yet  form  conclusions  herein  ;  still  less  can 
we  prophesy ;  but  one  very  hopeful  tendency,  at  least 
already  appears  in  the  modern  theatre ;  and  that  is 
unity  of  idea.  By  unity  of  idea  we  do  not  mean  just  team 
work,  and  the  suppression  of  the  star,  as  rightly  encouraged, 
for  example,  by  Mr.  Bridges  Adams,  in  his  Shakespearean 
company  ;  we  refer  to  the  increased  attention  being  given 
everywhere,  by  the  more  testhetic  producers,  to  unity  in 
the  whole  scheme  of  production,  so  that  settings,  costumes, 
lighting,  and  music  shall  all  accord,  co-operate,  and  blend 
into  one  harmonious  whole.1 

Another  very  encouraging  sign  of  the  times  is  the 
increased,  and  still  increasing,  interest  in  the  drama  shown 
throughout  Britain  by  the  populations  of  the  villages  and 
smaller  towns —a  movement  that  is  fast  making  towards 
the  establishment  of  a  people's  theatre  in  Western  Europe. 

1  The  Russian  Ballet,  it  seems,  has  "  had  &  word  to  say  "  here. 


CONCLUSION  231 

As  for  the  cinema,  one  has  often  heard  it  said,  of  late,  that 
the  picture-houses  are  destroying  the  theatres.  That  they 
are  injuring  them  financially,  I  agree ;  but  that  they 
will  continue  permanently  to  do  so,  I  cannot  believe. 
Rather  I  think  that  they  will,  in  the  end,  create  a  new 
public  for  the  theatre,  by  drawing  towards  legitimate 
drama  people  who  otherwise  might  never  have  come 
within  its  influence.  Great  plays  depend  always  for  their 
effect  upon  living  words  spoken,  with  action,  by  an  actor 
upon  the  stage ;  and  surely  the  living  soul  can  never  be 
supplanted  by  his  own  photograph,  however  cunningly  it 
may  be  focused,  or  however  cleverly  voiced  by  a  gramophone 
behind  the  screen.  Shakespeare  has  never  yet  been  pro- 
duced successfully  in  the  picture-house,  nor,  perhaps,  will 
he  ever  be.  And,  whatever  one  may  say  concerning  the 
present,  or  the  future,  of  the  British  theatre,  it  is  neces- 
sarily to  the  matchless  Elizabethan  that  we  turn  always, 
in  the  end  :  for  generations  of  men — and  their  fashions 
with  them — may  come  and  go  ;  but  the  vogue  of  the  mighty 
ones  is  eternal. 


APPENDIX 

A    LIST    OF    SOME    OF    THE    PRINCIPAL    PARTS 
PLAYED  BY  MRS.  STIRLING. 

(The  dates  are  usually  those  of  her  first  appearance.) 


Date. 

Theatre. 

Title  of  Play. 

Part. 

1831  (?) 

Coburg 

Lovers'  Vows  (Kotzebue) 

Amelia  Wildenheim 

1831  (?) 

East 

The  Pretender,  or  The  Rose  of 

1832  Jan. 

London 
9  i  Pavilion 

Alvery  (John  Stafford) 
The  Devil  and  the  Widow 

Zephyrina  the 
Widow 

Jan. 

12 

Thirteen  Years'  Labour  Lost      |  Lubin 

Jan. 

16 

The  Shipwreck  of  the  Medusa,     Eugene 

or  The  Fatal  Raft 

Jan. 

16  : 

A  Family  Party,  or  The  Philo- 

Harriet 

sopher  Puzzled 

Jan. 

23 

The  Huguenots,  or  The  Mas-     Marie  de  Noir- 

sacre  of  1576                                    moutiers 

Jan. 

30 

The  Man  in  the  Iron  Mask 

Mdlle.  Aubry 

Jan. 

Feb. 

30 
13 

The  Wept  of  Wish  -ton  -Wish 
Eugene  Aram  (Bulger's  Adap- 

Faith Gough 
Elinor  Lester 

tation) 

Feb. 

13 

Masaniello                                         Elvira 

Feb. 

20  ; 

Faustus,  or  The  Demon's  Bond     Rosalia 

Feb. 

24  ; 

William  Tell                                      Agnes 

April 

23 

Cherry  and  Fair  Star,  or  The  1  Fair  Star 

j 

Orphan  of  Cyprus 

May 

9 

The  Wreck  Ashore  (J.  B.  Buck-     Bella 

stone) 

May 

19 

The  Red  Rover                                Geraldine 

June 

18 

The  Porter  of  Bagdad                     Zarde 

June 

18 

The  Witch  of  Tartary                  '  Cepherenza 

July 

12 

A  Woman  Never  Vext                    Jane 

July 
July 

16 

16 

Billy  Snivel  and  Sally  Sly              Sophia  Graceville 
Aladdin                                           ;  Princess     Badroul- 

boudour 

July 

16 

Peter  Wilkina                                !  Peter  Wilkins 

July 

31 

Blue  Beard 

Beda 

Aug. 

16 

Giovanni  in  London 

Squalling  Fan 

Aug. 

20  j 

Law  and  Lions 

Jane  Suavey 

Aug. 

21 

The  Wild  Boy  of  Bohemia 

Countess    Czar- 

toryski 

Oct. 

3  i 

Lone  Hut  of  Limehouse  Creek 

Fan 

Oct. 

3 

The  Tower  of  Nesle,  or    The 

Charlotte 

Black  Gondola 

Oct. 

4 

The  Irish  Tutor 

Rosa 

Oct. 

9 

The  Iron  Hand,  or  The  Black- 

Moritz 

smith  of  Warsaw 

Oct. 

15 

The  Dwarf  of  Naples 

Amanda 

Oct. 

16 

Trial  by  Battle 

Geraldine 

233 


234     THE   STAGE  LIFE   OF   MRS.   STIRLING 


Date. 

Theatre.                        Title  of  Play. 

Part. 

1832  Oct.     22 

Pavilion 

Black  Hugh,  or  The  Outlaw's 

Caroline 

Fate 

Oct.      22 

M 

The  Idiot  Witness 

Jeannette 

1S36  Jan.       1 

Adelphi 

A  Dream  at  Sea  (Buckstone) 

Biddy  Nutts 

Jan.       3 

t» 

A  Ghost  Story 

Catherine  Graham 

Jan.      18 

Luke  Somerton 

Louisa  Somerton 

Feb.       3 

,} 

Rienzi,  the  Last  of  the  Tribunes 

A  minor  part 

March    7 

M 

Yictorine,  or  I'll  Sleep  On  It 

Victorine 

(Buckstone) 

March    7 

„                  The  Unfinished  Gentleman 

Oct.       3 

ii 

The  Doom  of  Marana 

Oct.     30 

Rosina,  or  Am  I  a  Princess  ? 

Rosina 

Nov.       7 

,, 

A  Flight  to  America  (Lemon 

Sally  Snow 

Rede) 

Dec.       5 

,, 

Paulina,  or  The  Passage  of  the 

Nanette 

Beresina 

Dec. 

M 

Grace  Huntley 

Grace  Huntley 

1837  Jan. 

Alexander  the  Great  (Coyne) 

Jan.       9 

99 

The  Humours  of  an  Election 

Lucy  Contest 

Feb.       6 

99 

The   Peacock   and   the   Crow 

Lady's  Maid 

(Parry) 

Feb.     20 

,, 

Hassan  Pacha,  or  The  Arab's 

The  Georgian 

Leap 

March    1 

99 

Douglas  (Leman  Rede's  Tra- 

Lady Randolph 

vesty) 

March  27 

New  Strand 

The  Gallantie  Showman,  or  Mr. 

Fanny  Flitter- 

Peppercorn 

mouse 

April    24 
May       8 

)9 

The  Golden  Calf  (Jerrold) 
Venus  in  Arms 

Mrs.  Mount  joy 
Arabella 

May     24 

f) 

Nell  G  wynne 

Nell  Gwynne 

May     29 

„ 

Bachelors'  Buttons  (Stirling) 

Emily  Wilton 

Sept.  (?) 

M 

Poachers  in  Petticoats 

Sept.    29 

St.  James's 

The  Young  Widow 

Amelia 

Sept.    29 

,, 

Methinks  I  see  My  Father 

Oct.  (?) 

99 

A  Day  in  Paris 

Oct.      26 

Natural  Magic 

HSloise   de   Miran 

court 

Nov. 

tf 

The  Miller's  Maid 

Nov.     11 

99 

Temptation,   or  The  Vale   of 

Ninette 

Sarnen 

Nov.    27 

ft 

Angeline 

Ang61ine 

Nov.     27 

99 

The  Cabinet 

Curioso 

Dec.     18 
Dec.     26 

99 

The  Siege  of  Belgrade 
Pascal  Bruno 

Catherine 
Pascal  Bruno 

1838  Jan.       3 

99 

The  Culprit 

Mrs.  Hussey 

Feb.       6 

99 

'Tis  She,  or  Maid,  Wifo   and 

Widow 

Feb.       6 

99 

The  Black  Domino 

Black  Domino 

March 

Garrick, 

A  Married  Rake 

Whitechapel 

March 

99 

Angeline  de  Lys 

Angeline 

March 
March  26 

99 
99 

Hunting  a  Turtle 
The  Maid  of  Switzerland 

Gene  vie  ve 

March  30 

M 

The  Irresistibles 

Victoria 

April 

St.  James's 

The  Valet  de  Sham 

April 

99 

The  Brothers 

Two  characters 

[PBOVINCIAL  TOUB,  AND  FIBST  RETIREMENT.] 


1839  April 


Lyceum         |  Lady  Mary  Wortley  Montague, 
(formerly  or  Courtship  and  Matrimony 

Opera  House)       in  1712 


Lady  Mary 


LIST    OF    THE    PRINCIPAL    PARTS 


235 


Date. 

Theatre. 

Title  of  Play. 

Part. 

1839  Oct.      30 

Drury  Lane 

Much  Ado  About  Nothing 

Beatrice 

Nov.      8 

99 

The  Hypocrite 

Charlotte 

Nov.     10 

99 

Englishmen  in  India 

Sally  Scraggs 

Nov.     1  1 

H 

Pizarro 

Cora 

Nov.     27 

A  Woman's  Trials                         j  Ellen  Marchmont 

Dec.    4(?) 

„ 

A  Night  in  the  Bastille                |  Gabrielle  de 

Brionne 

1840  Jan.       7 

,, 

Cupid's  Diplomacy                          "  Albert  "    (Louis 

XV  of  France) 

March  20 

Olympic 

The  Ladies'  Club  (Mark  Lemon)     The      Chairwoman 

(Mrs.  Fitzsmith) 

April      1 

n 

Gwynneth    Vaughan    (Mark       Gwynneth  Vaughan 

Lemon) 

Sept.    29 
Oct.     (?) 

Haymarket 

The  Man  of  the  World                    Lady  Rodolpha 
The  Stranger                                    Countess  Wintersen 

Oct.     (?) 

» 

Town  and  Country                           Rosalie  Somers 

Oct.     (?) 

99 

The  Love  Chase                                Constance 

Nov.    (?) 

H 

The  Road  to  Ruin                         |  Sophia 

1841  Jan.       7 

Money  (Bulwer)                                Clara 

Feb.     25 

The  King  and  the  Barber               Paghita 

April    12 

99 

The  Rent  Day  (Jerrold)               ,  Rachel  Hey  wood 

April    13 
May       3 

} 

Wild  Oats                                           Lady  Amaranth 
Money                                                  Lady  Franklin 

May      12 

9 

The  Hunchback                               Helen 

May      17 

. 

The  Stranger                                    Countess  Wintereen 

May      18 

1 

The  Philosopher  of  Berlin           j  Amelia 

May     19 

H 

The  Provoked  Husband               !  Lady  Grace 

June     10 

Belford  Castle  (Lunn)                     Comedy  Lead 

Sept.    17 

„ 

Riches  (adaptation  from  Mas-     Lady  Traffic 

singer) 

Sept.    21 

„ 

Foreign  Affairs                                 Baroness  Fitz- 

stoutz 

(?) 

H 

Venice  Preserved                           :  Belvidera 

[TEMPOBABY  RETIREMENT.] 

1842  Sept.    15     Haymarket 

The  Road  to  Ruin                           Sophia 

Oct.        1 

Drury  Lane 

As  You  Like  It 

Celia 

Oct.      29 

J} 

The  Provoked  Husband 

Fanny 

Oct.      29 

99 

The  Eton  Boy 

Fanny  Curry 

Nov.     16 

King  Arthur  (Dry  den) 

Emmeline 

Nov.     19 
1843  Feb.     11 

•' 

,  Love  for  Love  (Congreve) 
A    Blot    on    the    TScutcheon 

Mrs.  Foresight 
Gwendolen 

(Browning) 

Feb.     25 

99 

The  Gamester 

Charlotte 

May       6 

!  The  School  for  Scandal 

Mrs.  Candour 

May     10 

?> 

The  Jealous  Wife 

Lady  Freelove 

May     18 

M 

Athelwold 

Gilbertha 

June      5 

Strand 

Rights  of  Women  (Lunn) 

Mrs.  Blandish 

July       3 

The  Lady  of  the  Lake 

Ellen 

July     10 

99 

Aline,  or  the  Rose  of  Killarney 

Aline 

(Stirling,  from  Scribe) 

Aug.       2 

9> 

!  The  Ambassador's  Lady  (Wilks) 

Lady  Elizabeth 

Aug.       2 

99 

A  Night  of  Surprise 

1844  Jan.     22 

Drury  Lane 

Richard  III 

Queen  Anne 

May     28 

»> 

;  Daughter  of  the  Regiment  (she 

Maria 

sang  Donizetti's  music) 

May     28 

J9 

j  Black  -Eyed  Susan  (Jerrold) 

Susan 

(?) 

Princess's 

1  Werner 

Ida 

Oct.       8 

>} 

i  Don  Caesar  de  Bazan 

Maritana 

Nov.     13 

i  A  Widow  Bewitched 

Mrs.  Lorimer 

Nov.    27 

" 

•<  The  Rent  Day 

Rachel  Heywood 

236     THE   STAGE   LIFE   OF   MRS.    STIRLING 


Date. 

Theatre. 

Title  of  Play. 

Part. 

1845  Feb.     10 

Princess's 

Othello 

Desdemona 

(circa) 

March 

t> 

The  Carbonari,  or  the  Bride  of 

Rebecca 

Parma 

March  26 

tf 

Metamora,    the    Last    of    the 

Oceana 

April      4 

Wanpanoags 
King  Lear  (with  Forrest) 

Cordelia 

April    19 

,, 

The  Hunchback  (Knowles) 

Helen 

May     20 

,, 

The  Chevalier  St.  George 

Comtesse  de  Presle 

Oct.        6 

tt 

Advice  to  Husbands 

Mrs.  Trevor 

Oct.        6 

ft 

Katharine  and  Petruchio 

Katharine 

Oct.      15 

tt 

King  Lear  (with  Macready) 

Cordelia 

Oct.      28 

„ 

Much  Ado  About  Nothing  (with 

Beatrice 

Wallack) 

Nov. 

»> 

The  Merchant  of  Venice 

Portia 

Nov.     11 

As  You  Like  It 

Rosalind 

and  15 

Nov.     18 

tt 

The  Violet 

Blanchette 

1846  Jan.        1 

M 

Cricket  on  the  Hearth 

Dot 

Feb.       2 

, 

Richelieu 

Julie  de  Mortemar 

March    5 

( 

The  Ruins  of  Athens 

Mercury 

March  19 

t 

The  Dreamer 

Lady  Clara  Bolton 

April    14 

, 

Ernestine 

Ernestine 

May       2 

P 

Pizarro 

Cora 

May     20 

t 

The    King    of    the    Commons 

Madeline  Weir 

(Rev.  J.  White) 

July       1 

,, 

Merry  Wives  of  Windsor 

Mrs.  Ford 

Aug.     17 

,, 

A  Curious  Case 

Mrs.  Aubrey 

Sept.    28 

Jt 

Clarissa  Harlowe 

Clarissa  Harlowe 

Nov.      4 

,, 

A  New  Way  to  Pay  Old  Debts 

Margaret 

Nov.     26 

M 

She  Stoops  to  Conquer 

Miss  Hardcastle 

Dec.     13 

M 

The  Heir  at  Law  (Colman) 

Cicely  Homespun 

Dec.     26 

,, 

Blanche  de  Valery 

Blanche 

1847  March  17 

tj 

Dream  of  the  Heart 

Hermine 

March 

M 

The  Widow  Bewitched 

April      5 

M 

Midsummer  Night's  Dream 

Hermia 

April    26 

The  Hunchback 

Helen 

May     25 

M 

The  Wonder 

Donna  Violante 

June       1 

f) 

Romance  and  Reality 

Florence 

June     18 

f) 

King  Lear  (with  Macready) 

Cordelia 

Oct.      18 

Lyceum 

The  Two  Queens 

Mary  of  Denmark 

Dec.       7 

Covent 

Selections  from  Merry  Wives 

Mrs.  Ford 

Garden 

Dec.     13 

Lyceum 

The  Tragedy  Queen  (Oxenford, 

Mrs.  Bracegirdle 

from  Scribe) 

1848  Feb.       1 

M 

A  Curious  Case 

Mrs.  Aubrey 

March  23 
July   10 

Drury  Lane 

A  Happy  Family 
Henry  VIII  (Macready's  Bene- 

Mrs. Catlin 
Small  Part 

fit) 

Sept.      4 

Olympic 

Time  Tries  All  (Courtnay) 

Laura  Leeson 

Oct.        2 

M 

The  Lady  of  Lyons 

Pauline 

Oct.      16 

Patronage 

Edith 

Oct.     (?) 

>» 

The  Honeymoon 

Juliana 

Oct.     (?) 

ft 

Monsieur  Jacques 

Oct.     (?) 

ff 

First  Champagne 

Oct.      24 

M 

Katharine  and  Petruchio 

Katharine 

Oct.      30 

tf 

Lucille 

Lucille 

Nov.     13 

if 

Love  and  Charity 

Julia  Amor 

Nov.     20 

99 

Cousin  Cherry 

Cousin  Cherry 

1849  Jan.     22 

M 

The  Brigands  in  the  Bud 

Ulric,  Count  of 

Bornholm 

Feb.     12 

•' 

The  Lost  Diamonds  (Stirling) 

LIST  OF   THE   PRINCIPAL   PARTS 


237 


Date. 

Theatre. 

Title  of  Play. 

Part. 

{OLYMPIC  DESTROYED  BY  FIRE,  MARCH  29TH,  1849.] 

1849  June    11 

New  Strand 

Honesty  is  the  Best  Policy 

Theresa 

July     30 

M 

Hearts     are     Trumps     (Mark 

Miss  Ruby 

Lemon) 

Aug.     20 

,, 

My  First  and  Last  Courtship 

Lead 

Sept.      6 

» 

Where  there's  a  Will  there's  a 

Princess  Francesca 

Way  (J.  M.  Morton) 

(?) 

9» 

Still  Water  Run  Deep  (Tom 

Mrs.  Hector  Stern- 

Taylor) 

hold 

Oct.        9 

» 

The  Reigning  Favourite  (Oxen- 
ford's  adaptation  from  Scribe 

Adrienne  Le- 
couvreur 

Nov.     12 

H 

and  Legouve) 
The  Clandestine  Marriage  (Gar- 
rick  and  Colman) 

Fanny 

Nov.    26 

>» 

The  Man  Trap 

Countess    de    Ros- 

seille 

Dec.       1 

If 

She  Stoops  to  Conquer 

Miss  Hardcastle 

Dec.       5 

The  Poor  Gentleman  (G.  Col- 

Emily Worthington 

man  the  younger) 

Dec.     1  1 

}i 

King  Rene's  Daughter 

lolanthe 

Dec.     26 

„ 

Diogenes  andHis  Lantern  (Tal- 

Minerva 

fourd) 

I860  Jan.     21 

n 

The  Love  Chase  (Knowles) 

Constance 

Feb.       4 

}t 

A  New  and  Peculiar  Scene  in 

Polly  Crisp 

the  Life  of  an  Unprotected 

March    4 

Female  (Stirling  Coyne) 
Vicar  of  Wakefield  (Tom  Taylor) 

Olivia 

April      8 

,, 

Poor  Cousin  Walter  (Palgrave 

Helen 

Simpson) 

June    10 

,. 

Power   and   Principle    (Morris 

Louise  Muller 

Barnett). 

Aug.       5 

» 

A  Daughter  of  the  Stars  (Shirley 

Miriam 

Brooks) 

Sept.    12 

Olympic 

Giralda,  or  The  Invisible  Hus- 

Giralda 

band  (from  Scribe) 

Oct.      14 

>» 

My  Wife  s  Daughter  (Stirling 

Mrs.  Ormonde 

Coyne) 

Dec. 

— 

The  Merchant  of  Venice 

Portia 

(?) 

5> 

Speed  the  Plough  (T.  Morton 

Susan  Ashfield 

the  elder) 

1851  Jan.     13 

: 

All  that  Glitters  is  not  Gold 

Martha  Gibbs 

(T.    Morton     the    younger, 

and  J.  M.  Morton) 

Feb.     21 

99 

That   Odious   Captain    Cutter 

The    Widow    Har- 

(J.  Palgrave  Simpson) 

court 

March  17 

js 

Charles  King 

Mimi 

March  17 

My  Wife's  Second  Floor 

April    21 

9> 

Sir  Roger  de  Coverley   (Tom  i  The  Widow 

May       7 

jy 

Taylor's  adaptation) 
The    Ladies'    Battle    (Charles 

The  Countess 

Reade,  from  Scribe  and  Le- 

gouve) 

June    15 

The  Lost  Diamonds 

Aug.     11 
Aug.     25 
Dec.       9 

99 

Angelo  (Victor  Hugo) 
Hearts  are  Trumps 
The  Man  of  Law 

Tisbe 
Baronne    de    Vau- 

bert 

1852  Jan.     20 

,,              i  London  Assurance 

Lady  Gay 

April    21 

,,                Mind     Your     Own     Business 

Fanny  Morrison 

(Mark  Lemon) 

June    16 

,,              ;  Married  Life  (Buckstone) 

238     THE   STAGE   LIFE   OF   MRS.    STIRLING 


Date. 

Theatre. 

Title  of  Play. 

Part. 

1852  June    22 
Nov.    20 

Olympic 

A  Novel  Expedient 
Masks   and  Faces   (T.   Taylor 
and  C.  Reade) 

Mrs.  Moore 
Peg  Woffington 

[A  NORTHERN  PROVINCIAL  TOUR.] 


1853  Oct.      17      Olympic 

Oct.      17     Haymarket 


1854  March 

1854  (?)  May 

1855  June    22  j 

1856  Feb.     12 

May     26 
May     26 


Olympic 


July 
1857  Feb. 


14  | 

19  ' 


Olympic 


Aug.  10  ! 

Oct.  19 

1858  Feb. 
April  19 
June  8 
Oct.  11 

1859  Sept.  24 

1860  Jan.  16(?) 


Jan.     31  I  Windsor 

Castle 
July     25     Drury  Lane 


1861  Jan.     17 
March    6 


Windsor 

Castle 
Haymarket 


The  Camp  at  the  Olympic 
Plot  and  Passion  (T.  Taylor 

and  Lang) 
To  oblige  Benson  (T.  Taylor, 

from  French) 
Still  Waters  Run  Deep 
School     for      Scandal      (Mrs. 

Wigan's  Benefit) 
Stay  at  Home  (Slingsby  Law- 
rence, G.  H.  Lewes) 
The  Tragedy  Queen 
Wives    as    They    Were,    and 

Maids    as    They    Are    (Mrs. 

Inchbald) 
A  Conjugal  Lesson 
A  Sheep  in  Wolf's  Clothing  (T. 

Taylor,  from  French) 
The     Subterfuge     (re -opening 

under  Robson  and  Emden) 
Leading  Strings  (A.  G.  Trough - 

ton,  from  Scribe) 
Northern  Tour 

A  Doubtful  Victory  (Oxenford) 
All  in  the  Wrong 
The  Red  Vial  (Wilkie  Collins) 
A  Morning  Call 
The     Head     of     the     Family 

(adaptation  from  Alfred  de 

Musset). 
Nine  Points  of  the  Law 

Brough's  Benefit.  Prologue  to 
Burlesque  "  The  Enchanted 
Isle  "  (The  Brough  Bros.) 

Masks  and  Faces  (Command 
Performance) 

A  Duke  in  Difficulties  (Tom 
Taylor) 


Marie  de  Fontange* 

Mrs.  Trotter  South- 
down 

Lady  Teazle 
Mrs.  Metcalfe 
Mrs.  Bracegirdle 


Miss  Dorrillon 
Anne  Carew 


Mrs.  Leveson 


Mrs.  Flowerdale 
Lady  Restless 
Mrs.  Bergmann 
Mrs.  Chillingstono 


Peg  Woffingtoa 
Joconde 


[TEMPORARY  RETIREMENT,  1861-1863.] 


1863  Aug.     24 
1864  Aug.     29 

Adelphi 

Hen  and  Chickens 
A   Woman   of   Business   (Ben 

Mrs.  Soft  Sawderley 
Mrs.  Hall 

Webster,  Jun.) 

Oct. 

St.  James's 

How  Will  They  Get  Out  of  It  ? 

Oct. 

ff 

Woodcock's  Little  Game 

Nov.    30 

Adelphi 

The  Workmen  of  Paris  (from 

Marguerite 

Drames  du  Cabaret) 

1866  July       2 

Princess's 

The  Huguenot  Captain  (Watts 

Jeanne  d'Armenon- 

Phillips) 

ville 

1867  Dec.       4 

Olympic 

From    Grave    to    Gay     (Ben 

Lady  Diver  Kidd 

Webster,  Jun.,  from  Scribe) 

1868  Feb.     18 

M 

A  Woman  of  the  World  (Stir- 

Mrs.  Eddy  stone 

1869  March  29 

Adelphi 

ling  Coyne,  from  French) 
Black  and  White  (Wilkie  Collins 

and  Charles  Fechter) 

LIST   OF   THE   PRINCIPAL   PARTS 


239 


Date.               Theatre.                       Title  of  Play. 

l                        ' 

Part. 

1                        i 

1869  Easter 

New                  Won  by  a  Head  (Tom  Taylor) 

Monday 

Queen's  ; 

April    23 

St.  James's      Midsummer  Night's  Dream  (A 

1870  (circa) 

Hall                  DramaticReadingwithMusic) 
!  New  Men  and  Old  Acres  (Tom  '  Lady  Vavasour 

Taylor) 

1874  March    2 

Drurv  Lane     Webster's  Farewell  Benefit          i  Mrs.  Candour 

1876  June      8                „              Buckstone's  Farewell  Benefit         Mrs.  Candour 

1878  March    4 

„             Chatterton's  Benefit                     j  Recites  "  The 

Whaler's  Fleet,  " 

[RETURN  TO  THE  STAGE.] 

1879  Sept.    22 

Imperial          The  Beaux's  Stratagem  (Far- 
Aquarium)  !       quhar).    (Mrs.  Stirling  spoke 

Lady  Bountiful 

prologue  by  Clement  Scott) 

1880 

Haymarket 

Played  Mrs.  Malaprop  with  the 

Bancrofts 

1882  March    8 

Lyceum 

Romeo  and  Juliet  (with  Ellen 

The  Nurse 

Terry) 

Dec. 

Vaudeville 

The  Rivals 

Mrs.  Malaprop 

1883  Jan.     21 

Haymarket 

Caste  (Robertson) 

Marquise     de     St. 

Maur 

Nov.    24 

n 

Lords  and  Commons  (Pinero) 

Lady  Gary  11 

(her  last  original  part) 

1884  Nov.       1 

Lyceum 

Romeo  and  Juliet  (with  Miss 

The  Nurse 

Mary  Anderson) 

1885  March  25 

Criterion 

Mrs.  Stirling  and  Mrs.  Keeley 

spoke  an  address  and  rhymed 

epilogue  by  Clement  Scott. 
(Matine"e  for  National    Aid 

Society's  Sick  and  Wounded 

in  London  Fund) 

July     20 

Haymarket 

Retirement   of  Mr.    and  Mrs. 

Bancroft.         Plays     "  Lady 

Franklin"   in  First  Act  of 

"  Money  " 

Oct.      29 

Creswick's  Benefit 

Recites  "Our 

Whaler  Fleet  " 

Deo.     19 

Lyceum 

Faust  (Wills)  (with  H.  Irving 

Martha 

and  Ellen  Terry) 

INDEX 


Adams,  Bridges,  230 

Addison  (actor),  56,  161,  166 

Addigon,  Curlotta,  216 

Adelphi  Theatre,  35-42,  147,  179 

Adrienne  Lecouvreur  (see  Mrs.  Stirling) 

"  All  Is  Not  Gold  That  Glitters,"  124,  125, 

136,  147 
Amherst,  24 

Anderson  (actor),  73,  75,  171 
Anderson,  Mary  (Mme.  de  Navarro),  48,  66, 

6Q,  205,  213  ;  letters  to,  219-21,  224,  225 
"  Angeline,"  Mrs.  Stirling  in,  45 
"  Angelo  "  (play),  132-35 
Antoine,  Theatre,  191 
Archer  (actor),  61 

"  Aristarchus  "  (Charles  Reade),  133-35 
Armitstead,  35 
Arnold,  Matthew,  79,  192 
Ashton,  Antony,  98 
Astley's  Amphitheatre,  55,  56 

"  Bachelor's  Buttons,"  43 

Ballantyne,  Sergeant,  183 

Bancroft,  Lady,  144,  146,  223 

Bancroft,  Sir  Squire,  13, 158, 169, 189,222, 226 

Bancrofts,  The,  11, 12,  101,  193, 199,  210,  218 

Barnett,  Morris,  119 

Bartholomew  Fair,  160 

Baylis,  Lilian,  13,  22,  140 

Baylis,  Mrs.,  135,  136,  139,  140,   141,  151, 

152,  158,  163,  177 
Baylis,  Newton,  13,  144,  145 
"  Beaux's  Stratagem,  The,"  198,  199 
Bennet,  Arnold,  186 

Benson,  Sir  Frank  R.,  13,  189,  208,  224 
Bernhardt,  Sarah,  107 
Beta's  "  Characteristics  of  Actors,"  171 
Beveridge,  J.  D.,  8 
Birmingham  Theatre  Royal,  35,  38 
"  Black  Domino,"  46 
Blanchard,  182 

"  Blot  On  The  'Scutcheon,  The,"  75 
Bond,  35 

Boothby,  Sir  W.,  83 
Boucicault,  Dion,  174 
Bouffe,  77,  150 

"  Bouillon,  Mme.  De,"  109,  110 
Bourdelle,  E.,  40 
Braham,  44,  45,  80 
Brighton,  Reading  at,  195 
Brooke,  G.  B.,  121,  122,  150 
Brookes,  Shirley,  168 
Brough,  Robert,  168 
Browning,  Robert,  75,  76 
Buckstone,  J.  B.,  23,  35,  36,  37,  38,  40,  41, 

77,  78,  99,  140,  170,  180,  181,  196 
Bulwer,  Edward  (Lord  Lytton),  27,  28,  37, 

49,  102 

Bunn,  21,  39,  50,  79,  80 
Burns,  Robert,  78 
Burroughs,  Watkin,  34 
Byron,  Lord,  21,  76 

Calhoun,  Eleanor,  211 

"  Caste,"  190,  Mrs.  Stirling  in,  210-212 

C61este,  Mdlle.,  26,  32 

Chapman,  Jane  Francis,  114 

Ch6ri,  Rose,  95 

"  Cherry  and  Fair  Star,"  32,  80 

Chippendale,  Mrs.,  218 

"  Christie  Johnstone,"  129,  139,  154 


Cibber,  Colley,  98,  226 

City  Theatre,  47 

"  Clandestine  Marriage,  The,"  116,  117 

"  Clarissa  Harlowe,"  167 

"  Clifton,  Fanny  "  (Mrs.  Stirling),  22,  24,  25, 

28,  31,  32,  34,  35 
"  Clive,  Kitty,"  143 

"  Cloister  and  the  Hearth,  The,"  136 
Coburg    Theatre  (Old  Vic),  22,  23,  27,  28, 

29,  37 

Coleman,  John,  72,  117,  128 

Collins,  Wilkie,  164,  200 

Come"  die  Francaise,  107 

Compton,  90,  91,  121,  151,  170 

Congreve,  William,  74,  75,  98 

"  Conjugal  Lesson,  A,"  161 

Cooke,  Dutton,  199 

Cooper,  79 

Cooper,  Miss  Gladys,  118 

"  Countess  Wintersen,"  67 

Court  Theatre,  33 

Courtnay,  100,  129 

Covent  Garden  Theatre,  27,  49,  50 

Coyne,  Stirling,  41,  118,  121,  186 

Creswick,  56 

Crow,  Jim,  41,  42 

Cruickshank,  George,  168 

"  Cupid's  Diplomacy,"  61 

Cushman,  Miss,  84,  85,  171 

"  Daughter  of  the  Stars,  A,"  120 

Davidge,  28,  34,  37 

De  Quincey,  on  Helen  Faucit,  68 

"  Desmarets,"  Robson  as,  157,  158 

Dickens,  Charles,  173,  174,  183 

Diderot's  paradox,  80 

Dimond,  26 

"  Doll's  House,  The,"  192 

"  Don  Cesar  de  Bazan,"  84,  87,  137 

"  Doom  of  Marana,"  40 

"  Douglas  "  (burlesque),  42 

Dramatic  Magazine,  57 

Dramatic,    Musical    and    Equestrian    Sick 

Fund,    172,    174,    175,    181,    183,    200. 

(Mrs.  Stirling's  speeches) 
"  Dream  at  Sea,  A,"  35,  180 
"  Dreams  of  the  Heart,"  93 
Drury  Lane  Theatre,  27,  28,  50,  52,  60,  61, 

72,  168,  196 
Dryden,  John,  74 
"  Duke  in  Difficulties,  A,"  169 
Dumas,  45 
Dumesnil,  98 

East  London  Theatre,  24,  25 

Edinburgh,  177 

Edinburgh,  Queen's  Theatre,  176 

Edinburgh,  Theatre  Royal,  147,  148,  162,  183 

"  Ellen  Marchmont,"  59-61 

Elliston,  63,  105,  137 

PJlton,  23,  38,  73 

Emden,  166 

Emery,  157,  159,  160 

"  Enchanted  Island,  The,"  168 

"  Englishman  in  India,  An,"  59 

Enthoven,  Mrs.  Charles,  13,  23 

"  Eton  Boy,  The,"  74 

Fagan,  J.  B.,  33 

"  Fanny  Flittermouse,"  43 

Farley,  80 


16 


242     THE   STAGE  LIFE   OF   MRS.   STIRLING 


Farquhar,  Robert,  199 

Farrell,  31 

iFarren,  William,  39,  62,  111,  117,  120,  127, 

156,  157 

Farrens,  The,  105,  113,  121,  122,  130 
Faucit,  Helen,  29,  66,  68,  69,  75,  78,  108, 

114,  121,  147,  150,  171,  189,  225 
"  Faust,"  at  Lyceum,  216-18 
Fitzgerald,  Percy,  206 
Fitzpatrick,  Miss,  159 
"  Flight  to  America,  A,"  41,  48 
Forbes-Robertson,  Johnston,  212 
Forrest,  85,  89 
Forster,  John,  51,  78 
Freer,  31 

"  Gabrielle  de  Brionne,"  61 

Garrick  Club,  141,  146 

Garriek,  David,  8,  22,  99,  116,  150,  208 

Garrick  Theatre  (Whitechapel),  47 

Gautier,  Th6ophile,  113 

Gladstone,  W.  E.,  48,  201,  215 

Glasgow,  Prince's  Theatre,  148,  149,  178 

Glasgow,  Theatre  Royal,  163,  177 

Glennie,  Charles,  8 

Glover,  Mrs.,  21,  49,  61,  62,  67,  69,  84,  116, 

117,  118,  119,  137,  189,  199 
Glover,  Samuel,  149,  152-54,  163,  177 
Glyn,  Miss,  150,  171 
"  Gold,"  153 
"  Golden  Calf,  The,"  43 
"  Goldfinch  "  <"  Road  to  Ruin  "),  67 
Goldsmith,  Oliver,  22 
Graham,  73 
Granby,  91 

"  Grave  to  Gay,  From,"  186 
Gregory,  Mrs.,  140,  141 
Gregory,  Sir  C.  H.,  141,  222,  223 
Green,  Miss  Dorothy,  81 
Greet,  Ben,  13,  145,  200,  213,  216 
Grub  Street  Theatre,  23,  24 
"  Grundy,  Mrs.,"  origin  of,  122 
Guitry,  Lucien,  104 

Hackett,  James  K.,  80 

Hammond,  W.  J.,  47,  56,  59 

"  Happy  Family,  A,"  99 

Hare,  Sir  John,  8,  118,  189,  201 

Harley,  39,  79,  98,  99 

Haviland,  8 

Haymarket  Theatre,  49,  51,  63,  136,  138, 

141,  210 
Hazlitt,  63 

"  Hearts  are  Trumps,"  105,  137 
Hehl,  Agnes,  20 
Hehl,  Captain,  19,  20,  30 
Hehl,  Mary  Ann  (see  Mrs.  Stirling) 
"  Heidelberg,  Mrs.,"  Mrs.  Glover  ag,  116 
Hemming,  36,  40 
"  Hen  and  Chickens,"  179,  181 
"Hernani,"  76 
Hertz,  Henrik,  113 
Holcroft,  67 

Hollingshead,  John,  29,  49,  157,  168,  181 
Holloway,  Baliol,  81 
Honey,  Mrs.,  38,  40 
Howe,  J.  B.,  8,  65,  187,  170,  208 
Hugo,  Victor,  76,  132,  142 
'  Huguenot  Captain,  The,"  185 
"  Humours  of  an  Election,"  41 
"Hunchback,  The,"  71 

Ibsen,  Henrik,  191,  192,  229 
Imperial  Theatre,  198,  200' 
Inchbald,  Mrs.,  161 

Irving,  Henry,  8,  25,  99,  100,  182,  187,  188, 
203,  207 

Jameson,  Storm,  230 

Jerrold,  Douglas,  33,  43,  70,  82,  84 


Jones,  Henry  Arthur,  192 
Jordan,  Mrs.,  21,  94,  117 

Kean,  Charles,  80,  166,  171,  188,  216 
Kean,  Edmund,  21,  22,  23,  29,  40    68    71 

76,  94,  95,  106 
Keane,  Miss  Doris,  215 
Keans,  The,  11,  71,  114.  118 
Keeley,    Mrs.,    40,    72,    77,    96,    103,    171, 

Keeley, 'Robert,  73,  77,  78,  79,  178 

Kemble,  Charles,  80 

Kemble,  Fanny,  64,  84,  171,  172 

Kemble,  John  P.,  11,  21,  22,  63,  76    208 

Kendal,  Mrs.,  190,  194,  197,  226 

Kendals,  The,  8,  161,  189,  201 

"  King  Charles,"  126 

"  King  of  The  Commons,"  92 

"  King  Rene's  Daughter,"  113,  123,  147 

Knight,  Joseph,  11,  26,  144 

Knowles,  Sheridan,  49 

Kotzebue,  23,  91 

Lacey,  Walter,  83,  84,  171 

"  Ladies'  Battle,   The,"    130-32,    136,    149, 

153,  176,  178 

"  Ladies'  Club,  The,"  81,  62,  174 
"  Lady  of  Lyons,  The,"  49,  102,  121 
"  Lady  Rodolpha  Lumbercourt,"  67 
La  Fontaine,  fable  of,  108,  109 
Lambert,  137 
Lawrence,  Frederic,  51,  52 
"  Lawrence  Slingsby "  (G.  H.  Lewes),  180 
"  Leading  Strings,"  162,  166 
Legouve,  107,  130,  131 
Lemon,  Mark,  61,  105,  140 
Lewes,  G.  H.,  142,  157,  160 
Liverpool  Amphitheatre,  34,  147,  151 
Liverpool,  Prince  of  Wales's,  176 
Liverpool,  Theatre  Royal,  151 
Listen,  80,  137 
"  London  Assurance,"  140 
"  Lords  and  Commons,"  212,  213 
"  Love  and  Charity,"  103,  149,  151 
"  Love  Chase,  The,"  49,  67,  86,  117 
"  Love  for  Love,"  74 
"  Lucy  Contest,"  41 
"  Luke  Somerton,"  36,  37 
Lyceum  Theatre,  7,  48,  54,  97-99 

Macarthy,  Miss,  33 

Macklin,  67 

Macready,  W.  C.,  21,  28,   37,  39,  49,  flO, 

63-66,  68,  74,  75,  79,  80,  91,  92,  93,  94, 

99,  100,  101,  113,  126,  137,  187 
Maddox,  83,  91 

Manchester,  Queen's  Theatre,  34 
"  Man  in  the  Iron  Mask,  The,"  32 
"  Man  of  Law,  The,"  136,  137 
"  Man  of  the  World,  The,"  67 
"  Mariage  a  la  Mode,"  74 
Marston,  Westland,  119,  121,  145,  225 
Martin,  Sir  Theodore,  108,  113,  114 
"Masks  and  Faces,"  142-46,  149,  151,  153, 

163,  176,  180,  182 
Mathews,  Charles,  51,  74,  76,  91,  99,  337, 

171,  176,  186 

Mathews,  Mrs.  Charles  (see  Mme.  Vestrifi) 
"  Maurice  de  Saxe,"  107-10 
Maywood,  67,  78,  79 
Mead,  Tom,  8 
Meadows,  45,  79 
"Midsummer  Night's  Dream,  A,"  Beading*. 

195,  196 

"  Money,"  49,  68,  69,  102 
Morton,  J.  M.,  105,  124 
Morton,  Thomas  (the  elder),  122 
Morton,  Thomas  (the  younger),  124 
Moscovitch,  Maurice,  33 


INDEX 


243 


Monntfort,  Mrs.,  226 

Murray,  Leigh,  91,  100,  101,  102,  105,  118, 

12ft,  130,  131,  137,  157 
Musset,  Alfred  de,  166 
"  My  Wife's  Daughter,"  151 

"  Natural  Magic,"  44 

Navarro,  Mme.  de  (see  Mary  Anderson) 

Nettlefold,  F.  J.,  102 

Newcastle,   149 ;  Journal's    appreciation  of 

Mrs.  Stirling,  149-51 
"  Newcomes,  The,"  159 
New  Strand  Theatre,  43 
Newton,  Joseph,  180,  181 
"New  Way  to  Pay  Old  Debts,  A,"  95 
"  Night's  Adventure,  A,"  137 
"  Nine  Points  of  the  Law,"  166,  176 
Nisbett,  Mrs.,  49,  67,  72,  73,  74,  83,  117 
Norton  Folgate  Theatre,  47 

O'Connor,  41 

Oldfleld,  Mrs.,  150 

Old  Vic,  The,  29,  113,  144 

"  Oliver  Twist,"  29 

"  Olympic,  Camp  at  The,"  152,  156 

Olympic  Theatre,  50,  51,  61,  100-05,  120-27, 

152  ;  with  Robson,  156-71,  185,  186 
Orger,  Mrs.,  78 
Oxberry,  83,  91 
Oxenford,  John,  98,  108,  110,  189 

Pantheon,  The  City,  23 

Parry,  42 

"  Pascal  Bruno,"  45 

Patent  Theatres'  monopoly,  27 

Pavilion  Theatre  (Whitechapel),  24,  26,  27, 

30,  31-33,  47,  147 
Payne,  31 

"  Peacock  and  Crow,  The,"  42 
Penley,  54 

Penny  Theatre,  The,  52 
"  Phedre,"  107,  109,  110,  113 
Phelps,  Samuel,  8,  40,  65,  66,  72,  73,  75, 

83,  99,  171,  187 

Phillips,  H.  Wyndham,  145,  146 
Phillips,  Miss,  73 
Phillips,  Watts,  185 
"  Philosopher  of  Berlin,  The,"  71 
Phipps,  The  Hon.  Edward,  114 
Phoenix  Society,  The,  74 
Pinero,  Lady,  213,  226 
Pinero,  Sir  Arthur,  13, 190, 192, 212,  213,  224 
"  Pizarro,"  59 
Planchd,  156 

"  Plot  and  Passion,"  152,  156,  158,  226 
"  Polly  Crisp,"  118 
Pope,  C.,  39 

"  Power  and  Principle,"  119 
Prince  of  Wales's  Theatre,  190 
Princess's    Theatre,    79,    83-96,    185,    188, 

189,  193 

Qnartermaine,  Leon,  206 

Rachel,  Mdlle.,  107-13,  132,  150 

Racine,  Jean,  110 

Reade,  Charles,  117,  128-36,  137,  139,  141, 

142,  143,  146,  152,  178,  182,  228 
"  Red  Vial,  The,"  164-66 
Rede,  Leman,  41,  42 
Reeve,  John,  40,  41 
Regnier,  136 

"  Reigning  Favourite,  The,"  108-12,  147 
"  Rent  Day,  The,"  70,  84 
Rice,  41 
"  Riches,"  71 
"Rienzi,"  37 

"  Rights  of  Women,  The,"  78 
Ristori,  Mme.,  165 
"  Road  to  Ruin,  The,"  67,  68 


Robertson,  Madge  (see  Mrs.  Eendal) 
Robertson,  T.  W.,  101,  137,  182,  190,  191 
Robins,  George,  50 
Robson,   Frederic,   8,   157,    158,    161,    165, 

166,  171,  189 

"Roger  de  Coverley,  Sir,"  126,  127,  133 
Rogers,  "  Jimmy,"  129,  170 
"  Romeo  and  Juliet,"  203-09,  213-15 
Romer  (actor),  79 
Romer,  Miss,  79 
"  Rosine,"  40 
Roxby,  R.,  91 

Royal  Academy  of  Music,  195 
Royal  College  of  Music,  195 
"  Ruins  of  Athens  "  (masque),  91 
Russell,  Edward  R.,  205 
Ryder,  73 

Sadler's  Wells  Theatre,  27,  99,  188 
Saint  James's  Hall,  Reading  at,  196 
Saint  James's  Theatre,  46,  56,  114,  132 
Sala,  G.  A.,  168,  176 
"  Sally  Scraggs,"  59 
Saloons,  The,  53 
Sand,  George,  136 
Sandeau,  Jules,  136 
Sardou,  Victorien,  191 
Savage  Club,  168,  227 
Savile,  E.  F.,  29,  30 
Schiller,  119 

Scott,  Clement,  199,  216 
Scott,  Sir  Walter,  92 
Scribe,  107,  121,  130,  131,  185,  186,  191 
Sedgwick,  Miss,  171 
Selby,  Charles,  98 
Selby,  Mrs.,  61 
Seyler,  Athene,  74 
Shaw,  Bernard,  192 
Shaw,  Mrs.  A.,  79 

' '  Sheep  in  Wolf's  Clothing,  A,"  161 
Sheridan,  R.  Brinsley,  22 
"  Silver  King,  The,"  193 
Simpson,  Palgrave,  119,  125,  126 
Smith,  O.,  36,  40,  47 
"  Society,"  190 
"  Sophia,"  68 

"  Speed  the  Plough,"  122,  124 
Stafford,  John,  26 
Stanfteld,  Clarkson,  72,  80 
Stanley,  Emma,  91 

"  Star  and  Garter,"  Richmond,  130,  114 
Stirling,  Mrs.  Arthur,  195 
Stirling,  Edward,  32,  33,  34,  48,  73,  105,  213 
Stirling,  Fanny  (Mrs.)— 
Birth,  20 

Character,  57,  58,  227,  228 
Compared  with  Mrs.  Bancroft,  144 
Compared   with  Mrs.   Glover   in  "'. 

prop,"  119,  120 
Compared  with  Mdlle.  Rachel,  132-35 
Criticisms  of,  47,  48,  123,  124,  150,  151, 

224-27 
Death,  223 

Elocution,  Teacher  of,  193-95 
Letter  from  Reade,  132-35 
Letters  to  Miss  Anderson,  219-21 
Letters  to  Mrs.  Baylis,  140,  148,  149,  159, 

163,  164,  177-79 
Marriage,  33,  34,  222 
Parts  (principal)— 
'  Amor,  Julia,"  103 
'  Anne,  Queen  "  ("  Richard  III  "),  80, 

81 

'  Armenonville,  Jeanne  d',"  185 
'  Ashfield,  Mrs.,"  122 
'  Autreval,  Comtesse  d',"  131,  132 
'  Beatrice,"  58,  59,  86 
'Bella,"  33 

'  Bergmann,  Mrs.,"  164,  165 
'  Biddy  Nutts,"  35,  180 


Mala- 


244     THE   STAGE  LIFE   OF   MRS.   STIRLING 


Stirling,  Fanny  (Mrs.),  Parts  (principal)— con. 
"  Black -Eyed  Susan,"  82 
"  Blandish,  Mrs.,"  78 
"Bountiful,  Lady,"  198,  199 
"  Bracegirdle,  Mrs.,"  98,  160,  161 
"  Candour,  Mrs.,"  77,  196 
"Carew,  Anne,"  162 
"  Caryll,  Lady,"  212,  213 
"Celia,"  72,  73,  86 
'  Cherry,  Cousin,"  103,  104 
'  Clara  "  ("  Money  "),  68,  69 
'  Constance  "  ("  Love  Chase  "),  67,  117 
'  Cordelia,"  86,  89,  90,  167,  203 
'  Desdemona,"  84-88,  167,  203 
'  Eddystone,  Mrs.,"  186 
'  Fanny  "    ("  Clandestine    Marriage  "), 

116 

"  Fitzsmith,  Mrs.,"  61,  62 
'  Fontange,  Marie  de,"  156-58 
'  Ford,  Mrs.,"  98 
'  Foresight,  Mrs.,"  74,  75 
'Gay,  Lady,"  140 
'  Gibbs,  Martha,"  124,  125 
"Hardcastle,  Miss,"  96,  113 
"  Hermia,"  90 
"Heywood,  Rachel,"  70 
"  lolanthe  "  ("  King  Rent's  Daughter"), 

113,  114 

"  Joconde,"  169,  170 
"Juliet,"  167 
"  Katharine  "   ("  Taming  of   Shrew  "), 

102 

"  Kidd,  Lady  Diver,"  186 
"  Lecouvreur,  Adrienne,"  107-13 
"  Leeson,  Laura,"  100,  101 
"  Leveson,  Mrs.,"  162 
"Malaprop,  Mrs.,"  119,  120,  199,  200 
"  Margaret  "  ("  New  Way  to  Pay  Old 

Debts"),  95 
"  Marguerite  "  ("  Workmen  of  Paris  "), 

182 

"  Maritana  "  ("  C6sar  de  Bazan  "),  84,  87 
"  Martha  "  ("  Faust  "),  216-18 
"Mary  Montagu,  Lady,"  54-56 
"Miriam,"  120 
"  Morrison,  Fanny,"  140 
"Nurse,  The"  ("Romeo  and  Juliet"), 

203-09,  213-15 
"Olivia,"  118 
"  Ormonde,  Mrs.,"  121 
"  Pauline  "  ("  Lady  of  Lyons  "),  102 
"  Portia,"  86,  90,  122 
"Rosalind,"  86,  90,  225 
"St.  Maur,  Marquise  de,"  210-12 
'*  Snow,  Sally,"  41 
"  Soft-Sawderley,  Mrs.,"  179 
"Sophia"  ("Road  to  Ruin"),  68 
"Teazle,  Lady,"  160 
"Tisbe  La"  ("Angelo"),  132-35 
"Woffington,  Peg.,"  143,  144,  177 
"Vavasour,  Lilian,"  197 
"Victorine,"  38 
Parentage,  19,  20 

Personal  Appearance,  129,  145,  146 
Portraits  of,  145,  146 
Private  Life,  in,  57,  58,  218-23 
Readings  of  Shakespeare,  195,  196 
Retirements,  49,  170,  171,  186,  218 
Speeches    (Dramatic    and    Musical    Sick 
Fund),    174,    175,,  176,    181,    183-5, 
200-03 
Stirling,  Miss  Fanny,  71,  77,  140,  148,  149, 

167-70,  174 
Stock  Companies,  190 
Strand  Theatre,  106-20 
Strindberg,  August,  191 
Surrey  Theatre,  The,  22,  27 

Talfourd,  Sergeant,  117,  165 


Tallis'*    Dramatic    Magazine,    25,    35,    89, 

Talma,  8 

Taylor,  Tom,  118,  126,  130,  141,  142,  143, 

146,   156,   161,   169,   172,   173 
Terry,   Ellen,   11,   13,   118,   152,   179,    189. 

194,  197,  203-06,  217,  226 
Terry,  Kate,  131,  168 
Thackeray,  W.  M.,  159,  172,  173 
"  Theates  "  letters  to  Examiner,  85-88 
Theatre,  Condition  of,  in  1832,  26-30  •    in 

1838,  49-53  ;  in  1868,  187-93 
Theatres  Act,  53 

Theatrical  Fund,  General,  172,  173,  200 
Thomas,  Moy,  190 

Thorndyke,  Miss  Sybil,  113,  144,  145 
"  Time  Tries  All,"  100,  101,  119,  122,  129, 

147 

"  'Tis  She,"  45 
Toole,  J.  L.,  138,  182 
"  Tragedy  Queen,  The,"  176,  178 
Tree,  Beerbohm,  189 
Tree,   Ellen  (Mrs.  C.   Kean),  23,   39,    171, 

189,  194 
Tree,  Viola,  118 
Trench,  Mrs.,  177 

"  Triplet,"  Webster  as,  143,  145,  147 
Troughton,  A.  C.,  162 

Uphill,  Devon,  140 

Vandenhoff,  39 

Vandenhoff,  Miss,  171 

Vaudeville  Theatre,  200 

"  Venus  in  Arms,"  44 

Vestris,  Mme.,  50,  51,  91,  94,  97,  99,  105 

"  Vicar  of  Wakefield,  The,"  118 

Victoria  Theatre  (see  Coburg) 

"  Victorine,"  38,  48 

Vining,  Miss  A.,  137 

Vining,  James,  23,  91,  159,  161,  166 

Wallace,  James,  45,  71,  83,  90,  91,  94,  13T 

Walton,  91 

Warde,  Dame  Genevieve,  8,  13,  226 

Warner,  Charles,  182 

Warren,  Mrs.,  65 

Webster,  Ben,  46,  121,  136,  138,  141,  150, 

171,  173,  179,  182,  196 
Webster,  Ben,  Junior,  179,  182,  186 
Webster,  Ben  (the  present),  13 
Wedmore,  Frederick,  194 
"  Where  there's  a  Will,"  etc.,  105,  160 
White,  Rev.  James,  92 
Whitty,  Dame  May,  13,  225 
Wigan,  Alfred,  77,  79,  150,  152,   156,  166, 

171,  173 

Wigan,  Mrs.,  160,  162 
Wigans,  The,  12,  176 
Wilkins,  Mrs.,  170 
Wilkinson,  Tate,  42 
Willis's  Rooms  (St.  James's),  172 
Wilmot,  65 

Wilton,  Marie  (see  Lady  Bancroft) 
"  Wives  as  They  Were,"  etc.,  161 
"  Woman  of  Business,  A,"  182 
"  Woman  of  the  World,  The,"  186,  189 
"  Woman's  Trials,  A,"  59-61 
Woolgar,  Miss  (Mrs.  Alfred  Mellor).  168 
"  Workmen  of  Paris,"  182 
"  Wreck  Ashore,  The,"  33,  180 
Wyndham,  152 
Wyndham,  Sir  Charles,  8 

Yates,  36 

Yates,  Mrs.,  38,  40 

Young,  63,  80 

Zola,  Emile,  165,  182,  191 


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